Rhyme Schemes and Daydreams

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2011-05-07T21:37:00.000-05:00

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Rhyme Schemes and Daydreams

What Facebook Says to a Naked Lady

2011-04-14T01:09:00.004-05:00

According to a report on Gawker, a French user of Facebook is suing the company because his profile was deleted after he changed his profile picture. The new picture was actually a painting of a naked woman's nether regions. Gustave Courbet created the work, titled The Origin of the World, in 1886, and it hangs in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

This Frenchman's account was deleted right before his birthday, according to the Gawker report, so he wasn't able to get birthday wishes from his 800-or-so friends. Awww.

A couple of other Europeans became so outraged that they switched up their profile pics to the Courbet painting. Then they got madder because Facebook deleted their profiles, too.

WHAT ABOUT... ???

I haven't researched this story; I have read only the Gawker report, and I have some questions:

Is anyone else on Facebook allowed to have a close-up of genitalia (photo or artistic depiction) as his/her profile picture? I would imagine that it's against the terms of service, but does Facebook have someone looking at all images posted or did image analysis software pick it out or did someone report it as offensive?
What are the privacy settings for these three men? Are their profiles only visible to their own friends or are their profile pictures likely to appear on anyone's wall - including people who didn't expect to see exposed genitalia (fine art or not) appearing on their feeds.
Why is no one pointing to the biggest pussy on Facebook - the "unnamed Frenchman." He is so outraged that he cannot place any image he chooses on a public forum, and yet he is unwilling to reveal his name. What's up with that? Dork.

A COMMENTARY

A Facebook profile is not a basic human right or a God-given privilege. It's a fancy bulletin board where anything and everything you post could potentially be seen by any of the service's nearly 600 million users. About a quarter of the users are between the ages of 13 and 19. That means probably 10-15% are minors. About 300 million Facebook users are outside the United States. Some of those people come from countries or cultures with different sensibilities. We're not talking about a handful of conservative Midwesterners; we're talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of people who, because of their cultural mores or religious beliefs or personal hang-ups, don't want to log onto Facebook and find themselves face-to-face with exposed genitalia. Fine art or not.

I don't know art, but I know what I like, and in my opinion, Mr. Courbet's painting may be exquisitely rendered, perfectly detailed - in short, brilliant - but I don't want it to appear on my Facebook wall.

THE WORLD WON'T END

If you disagree with Facebook's Terms of Service, don't issue tirades against them, sue them, or send nasty emails to Mark Zuckerberg. Just cancel your account. The world won't end if you're not on Facebook.

I do have a Facebook profile. Almost everything in my profile is visible to friends only, and my photos are visible to friends of friends. Why? I created the profile to enter sweepstakes. I had a few friends, but didn't use it a whole lot. Then I won a big prize in a contest, and some sore losers found out that I'd won, and they started trolling around the internet looking for information about me. They went back to their sore loser club forum and made really nasty and in some cases, threatening comments, in which they referenced the photos on my Facebook and MySpace pages. That's when I set about making everything really private. I only kept the account because I wanted to keep entering sweepstakes.

SOCIAL MEDIA

That was in 2007. Since then, I began using Social Media at work, for public relations and marketing. I added a lot of friends. I have visited the Facebook and Twitter accounts of businesses and posted comments (praise, questions, and complaints) on those corporate pages. I have interacted with some of my favorite authors via social media. I reconnected with one of my best friends, who I'd lost track of. Social Media has its benefits.

More recently, every company in the world seems to be jumping on the Facebook bandwagon, and I'm getting really irritated about sweepstakes and contests that require you to like someone's Facebook page, and even worse - the ones that want unrestricted access to my account before I can enter.

Sorry, I'm not comfortable with that.

So please, if you're furious with Facebook because you can't do whatever you want to with your account, or because some closet art lover got his feelings hurt, close your account. Shut it down. Delete it. Find another social media outlet or just use email. Or pick up the phone. Whatever. Take some of the steam out of Mark Zuckerberg's "evil empire." That'll carry a lot more weight than a petty and frivolous lawsuit.

THE LADY OF THE STORM

2011-04-11T00:40:00.000-05:00

Coming August 2011

A darkly delicious new fantasy world
of sizzling romance amid the pageantry
of Georgian England.

http://www.kathrynekennedy.com

John Lennon magazine winner

2011-04-10T23:17:00.000-05:00

The winner of the Billboard magazine with the special section devoted to John Lennon is Ginger, with comment #9. Ginger has been notified by email and has already responded with her mailing address. Thank you to everyone who entered. I'm glad to know this very special issue is going to a good home with a big Beatles fan.

TV: Beauty and the Beast

2011-04-04T22:23:00.000-05:00

Beauty and the Beast was a fairly popular urban fantasy back in the late 1980s. I didn't watch the series in the beginning, and I don't recall what prompted me to tune in late in the second season, right before Linda Hamilton (Catherine) left the series and everything changed.

I never did see how the series began, so when I found Season 1 on DVD for $10 at Big Lots, I picked it up.

Wow. It's really sappy and weepy. I don't know how different it was when I started watching it from how it was in the beginning. I've been reading a bit online, and I gather that the producing staff (perhaps to meet network demands) made a bunch of changes in the second and third season to try to draw in more male viewers. Or maybe I was just dumber 20 years ago.

Right now, I'm watching episode 9 "Dark Spirit." In the first scene, a mature man is at a dinner party when he starts to appear ashen, he's complaining of being hot, and he's hallucinating that bugs are crawling on him. So, he's acting really strange and he looks ill. The people around the table keep trying to make toasts, and then when he jumps up from the table and stumbles across the room, they're just standing there. How about asking if he's okay and calling for an ambulance? Later, Catherine is in her office, and now she's been drugged, and her boss is just saying, "Take the afternoon off," when he should be insisting that she go to the hospital for a tox screen.

Every episode, it seems, someone does something incredibly stupid like that.

Plus, Catherine and Vincent (Ron Perlman) are clearly in love with each other. Vincent is not grotesque or anything. What's keeping them apart? Their own prejudices?

It's not like the stories don't make good points sometimes, but they're mostly just cheesy, and that's not a word I use lightly.

If it gets any better, I'll write an update.

Libya and the United States

2011-04-03T22:32:00.000-05:00

I haven't really been following the situation in Libya and the other Arab states where citizens have been rising up against oppressive governments. I've read a little bit about it online, but we don't have television, and since I left the news business four years ago, I haven't kept up with a lot of stories.

Today, I read an email newsletter from my congressman, Jeff Miller. I once had great respect for Rep. Miller, but lately, all of his newsletters seem designed to cast doubt and suspicion on the actions of President Obama. All it does is make me doubt Rep. Miller's motives.

You can read Congressman Miller's newsletter in full online. Here, I'll quote excerpts, in italics, beginning with the following:

The situation in Libya has been evolving constantly since unrest emerged there in February, following similar uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and other Arab states. Muammar Gaddafi—the man President Ronald Reagan called the “Mad Dog of the Middle East” for his sponsorship of terrorist activity against the United States and her allies—responded violently to opposition protests and threatened to treat protesters like “dogs” and to “show no mercy.”

He goes on to criticize President Obama for not speaking out against or taking action during the uprising and Gaddafi's violent reaction to it.

He does not criticize Republican President Richard Nixon, who was in office in 1969 when Gaddafi overthrew the sitting monarch and seized control of the Libyan government. Why didn't the U.S. take action then to protect the Libyan people from falling under a military dictatorship?

In February 2006, in the Libyan city of Benghazi, some 30 Libyans and foreigners were killed during civil unrest. Also in 2006, Middle East Quarterly quoted Gaddafi as saying that "execution is the fate of anyone who forms a political party." Rep. Miller does not criticize then-President George W. Bush for failing to take action against Gaddafi for restricting political freedoms in his country or for the murder of both Libyan citizens and foreigners.

Gaddafi has been in power for 42 years - through eight presidential administrations, including 28 years of Republican leadership - but Rep. Miller mentions none of that. Instead, he writes:

For three weeks the President remained silent while the world waited for some sign of American leadership, some indication of America’s intentions.

Now, let's approach things from a different direction.

On September 11, 2001, Muslim terrorists launched an attack on the United States. When the U.S. initiated military action against Al-Qaida and its leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the world was behind us. A few weeks later, the Bush administration concocted a story about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and declared war against that country and its leader, Saddam Hussein. As the truth came out, the world slowly began turning against us. Even in Iraq, the U.S. is criticized for its interference. I've spoken to a young man who was deployed to Iraq several times, about his experience with the people there, so my opinion is not just based on media reports.

Rep. Miller, in his newsletter, says that President Obama initiated his war in Libya without seeking the approval of the Congress.

But wait! Rep. Miller admits that President Obama consulted with The Arab League and the United Nations on the best course of action for the U.S. to take in this situation. As I began reading a few news reports this evening, I saw that U.S. troops are being deployed to Libya as part of a U.N. mission to Libya, a mission that includes troops from a number of other European nations.

So, in essence, President Obama is keeping the United States out of war, while still allowing the U.S. to take part in helping protect Libyan citizens.

I think this is the right approach, for these reasons:

The United States can't afford the wars that it's in, much less a third front. Our limited involvement is costing the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Rep. Miller. A full-out war would cost much more and would likely prolong our involvement in Libya.
The United States needs to be part of a larger response, in order to reduce criticism of the U.S. for once again meddling in another country's affairs.
The United States must take some action, because we have always tried to assist other nations, other peoples in their quest for freedom. It's a part of who we are and what we are.

President Obama did not declare war against Gaddafi or Libya. The limited action he authorized in support of the United Nations mission is, in my opinion, the best way to help a nation of people speaking out against oppression without earning more anti-American sentiment among the world's nations.

Rep. Miller concludes his newsletter by saying that our Nation [should commit] to war only when we must.

Really? Was that a "must" when the Bush administration lied about and faked evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Because instead of building a false case against Iraq, we should have focused all our efforts on finding Osama bin Laden and disbanding the terrorist group Al-Qaida, the ones who actually attacked the United States, both here at home and abroad.

Finally, I must acknowledge the one thing Rep. Miller wrote that I can agree with:

...our men and women in uniform deserve our highest thanks for their loyalty, patriotism, and professionalism.

Amen to that. Thank you to all our men and women in uniform, and to your families, for service and sacrifice on behalf of freedom.

How Mary Ann peels a potato.

2011-03-31T01:08:00.001-05:00

I love Gilligan's Island, and if you've ever watched the show, you know Mary Ann was the best cook on the island. The actress, Dawn Wells, is a pretty good cook herself. A few years ago, she even wrote Mary Ann's Gilligans Island Cookbook.

More recently, Dawn got herself a gig with the Idaho Potato people, and in this short promotional video, she demonstrates a quick and easy way to peel a potato.

The contest she references will be long over; the video was first posted in 2008.
Cute idea, though, isn't it?

Billboard Special Tribute to Lennon

2011-03-30T17:28:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, Billboard celebrated what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday with a special section.

Along with eight pages of editorial content - including an interview with Yoko Ono and a preview of several album re-releases - the issue contains a number of full page tribute advertisements.

I don't know why I'm receiving Billboard; I figure I must have won it in a sweepstakes. I don't usually hold onto them, but I felt this issue was special.

I like the Beatles, but I wouldn't really call myself a fan; a true fan would be able to name all their albums, know all their music and their history, and I just like hearing it on the radio. So, rather than keeping this issue any longer, I decided to give it away to someone who will appreciate it more.

MANDATORY FIRST ENTRY:

Comment on this post with the title of your favorite song by the Beatles or John Lennon.

No, your favorite song by Wings or the Traveling Wilburys doesn't count.

If your email is not visible on your GFC profile, please leave it in your comment.

EXTRA ENTRIES: For each item you complete, leave another comment here and be sure to include a link to your comments and tweets.

leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post on Rhymes Schemes and Daydreams (1)
follow Rhyme Schemes and Daydreams on Google Friend Connect
visit my Crazy Kitty Chick blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*visit my Hurricane Safety blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*follow Auriette on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)
*follow CrazyKittyChick on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)

You can earn a maximum of seven entries per household. Eligible comments must be made no later than 11:59pm ET on April 8, 2011. Entrants must be 18 or older, with shipping addresses in the United States or military APO/FPO addresses. One winner will be selected by random drawing no later than April 10 and notified by email. Winner must respond to the email with mailing address within 72 hours or another winner will be selected. The magazine will be packaged and sent media mail.

Health Care in America

2011-03-21T00:25:00.001-05:00

Today, I read a newsletter from my congressman, Rep. Jeff Miller of Florida. It got me fired up. You can read the newsletter online. Here is my response:

As a constituent and a United States citizen, I respectfuly request that you and other Republicans cease to refer to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as "ObamaCare." The use of this moniker is just a fragment of the partisan propaganda that aims to disrail the national health care plan.

President Obama's health care plan may not be perfect, but neither is our current system of health care, which is controlled by big business instead of by medical professionals. Instead of spewing generalities and party rhetoric, politicians who oppose certain aspects of the plan should offer concrete and positive suggestions that will lead to the creation of a workable health care program that's good for everyone.

In your newsletter, you wrote: "[Democrats] continued to use voodoo mathematics to support their bizarre claim that government run health care would save the taxpayers money."

In what way?

You wrote: "Under ObamaCare, taxes will be imposed on individuals who try to use their Health Savings Accounts to purchase over-the-counter medicines."

What taxes? Do they apply to everyone or only those in certain income brackets? Do all Health Savings Accounts now allow use of the funds to purchase over-the-counter medications?

Republican politicians have had a year to read and study this law, but still, you never give specific reasons why the program is bad. You never offer viable alternatives. Why don't Republicans create a document that gives the wording of each section of the Act followed by a plain-English explanation? Don't forget to include the contents of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, and please, take full responsibility for any changes and amendments added by the Republican Party.

I sent the above to Rep. Miller via the contact form on his website. I do not expect to get a response.

What do I think would work to improve health care in the USA? Sweeping overhaul of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, which are at the root of the health care problem in the United States.

**Eliminate insurance companies completely.
Right now, insurance companies are for-profit corporations who answer to their stockholders first. They allow profits to dictate what medications they cover, what treatments are allowed, and which doctors you're allowed to see.

**Require pharmaceutical companies to sell the same medications for the same price everywhere.
If a drug company can sell a tablet in Africa for $1.00, they should sell it to people in the United States for the same price. These unequal values contribute to rising insurance costs and to insurance companies refusing to cover certain prescribed drugs.

**Require insurance companies to cover any drug prescribed by a physician.
Right now, it doesn't matter what the doctor thinks will work best to treat the patient. Insurance companies, working directly with pharmacies, can decide to send a generic, a completely different medication or simply deny coverage.

If these three changes could be wrought, I believe we would see an improvement in medical care in the United States. These suggestions of mine certainly wouldn't solve all the problems, but they would help.

What do you think?

Please, don't just repeat something that you've heard somewhere else. Read the summary on Wikipedia. Find a truly unbiased article from a legitimate news source (FOX News doesn't count). Spend some time learning about the Act, then share what specifically you don't like and why. What alternatives would you suggest? Make this a positive discussion, not a rant or a slam against whichever party you don't like.

What do you think is the biggest social issue facing America today?

2011-03-16T01:43:00.001-05:00

I was recently asked to complete a survey with two primary questions. The first is in the headline, and I found it very difficult to choose one social ill in the United States as the top issue facing the country.

Finally, I decided on this response:
The social issue with the most repercussions is that children are being raised by cell phone with videogames as their constant companions, and they seem to be growing up self-absorbed, wild, and sociopathic. They are a danger to themselves and to others.

The second question was: What do you think could be done to resolve this issue?

I'm not of the "marriage should only be between a man and a woman" ilk, but I do believe that children should have complete families with two parents. Some people will say it's cruel or harsh, but I don't think people should have children who cannot afford for one parent to be home with them instead of being focused on their careers, dating (in single parent households), and "me time." Sure, parents need some "me time" too, but the child should be the parents' first concern.

That's all I said in the survey, but I will say a bit more here.

BABIES DON'T SOLVE PROBLEMS

I've known several women who got pregnant because their relationship was in trouble. They thought having a child would force the man to "start acting responsibly." I suppose, in a few rare cases, some people who unexpectedly find themselves "with child" have done a complete 360 and changed their whole outlook on life, but I wouldn't count on it.

The problems in the relationship are typically going to be amplified by having a baby. Any money troubles are going to get worse, because kids are expensive. If you think you don't have time for a proper date night when you're childless, what's going to happen when you have a baby who needs constant care?

THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE IN COMMON

My husband and I both like science fiction, and we've both known people who were forced to (or at least expected to) give up their collections or their hobbies or their friends because the spouse (typically the women) didn't like it. In another case, a women who went to all her boyfriend's sporting events while they were dating thought that, once they were married, he'd stop playing on those teams.

Here's a tip: You should date people, and definitely marry someone, with whom you have something in common. It gives you something to talk about and enjoy together because sex and having a date on national holidays does not a strong marriage make.

Talk about the issues and events of the day. If you're shocked and heartbroken by the events in Japan and he's cracking jokes about it, maybe he's not the right man for you. If she likes to go to the gun range on Saturdays and you think that individuals shouldn't be allowed to own firearms, guess what? It's probably not going to work out. You won't know that if you watch a football game together, have sex and go home, because she's probably only watching the game because she knows you want to, and she'll be offended if you want to spend your Saturday on the couch once you're married.

STUDY YOUR FINANCES BEFORE PAINTING THE NURSERY

Let's say you have really good insurance that will cover the pregnancy, birth, and pediatric child care. You still have to buy special food, and clothes, and toys, and baby gear, and dishes, latches for the cabinets, and a locking gun cabinet for her firearms. Some of the expenses will go away as baby becomes toddler becomes student, but they'll quickly be replaced with new costs.

Look at ways that you can adjust your spending. Can you live in a less expensive home or apartment to reduce monthly rent/mortgage payment? Can you make do with one vehicle instead of two, to save on insurance and maintenance costs? Which one of you is going to clip coupons (or print them from the internet)? Do you really need cable TV? What other monthly expenses can you reduce or eliminate to pay for what the kid needs?

Because what the kid really needs is a parent to guide him or her. A child learns from the parent. You can put them in school, but the teachers aren't supposed to teach morality any more. You need to be the one who explains what bullying is and why it's wrong, who tells your child to take a few steps to a trash can instead of throwing a drink cup or bottle on the ground. Plus, teachers can't give your child the personal attention that a stay-at-home-parent can: one on one reading help, going over math problems one by one until s/he gets it.

In a single parent household, the parent usually has to work. I applaud that. I certainly don't want my tax dollars going to pay for someone else's mistake. The solution is to abstain or use protection in order to avoid an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy, to use common sense in selecting a suitable lifemate, and to provide a two-parent family for the child. In cases where the mother or father is widowed, I am truly sorry for your loss. Those are the situations where extended family and good friends are important to providing adult guidance for your child.

In many two-parent households, the money earned by one of the parents is "gravy." It pays for the extra vehicle s/he needs to get to the job, for the child care while both parents are at work, for unnecessary luxuries like store-bought cakes, iPods, cell phones with unlimited texting for every members of the family, and so on. In the great scheme of the universe, are those things, those inanimate objects, worth more than personal pride, integrity, honesty, cleanliness, a good work ethic, appreciation for diversity - those intangible things that come from fathers and mothers spending time face-to-face with their offspring?

Of course not.

If you've wondered why you're hearing more stories of children killing each other or their parents or their grandparents or the neighbor's dog, I believe it's a direct result of parents not being actively involved in their children's lives every day. And with each successive generation getting less attention and education from their parents, it's only going to get worse.

And that's why I answered the survey questions the way that I did.

What do you think?

If I could eat the spam in my inbox, I'd never go hungry!

2011-03-13T00:38:00.001-06:00

Somehow, I have ended up on at least one spammer's email address. I can't quite figure out their gimmick, unless it's phishing. I've been offered free Southwest Airline tickets, gift cards for completing surveys, and a free home security system. I'm receiving offers for free grant money for school, learn-at-home opportunities, electronic cigarettes, and great deals on 2010 automobiles. Each offer comes two or three times a day, at least, from different email addresses. They all kind of look alike.

I guess maybe they think I'll eventually fall for their trap and fill out a form that gives them all the information they need to steal my identity.

I just forwarded 107 spam emails to the government's address - spam@uce.gov - in hopes that they'll investigate and stop these jerkwads. I had sent a few more, with full headers copied and pasted into the forwarded mail, however at least two of those bounced for containing a blacklisted URL (ya' think?).

I've tried using the blacklisting/whitelisting/graylisting feature provided by our ISP, but it ends up stopping legitimate mail, too. I'm already mad enough at Powweb (they promise unlimited email, but what they mean is that you can have as many email addresses as you want, but they won't allow you to keep much email on the server), without them stopping the emails that I want to receive.

Let me just verify - I'm not forwarding to the spam address any newsletters or sales documents sent from a legitimate company or retailer from whom I have requested information. They usually have an unsubscribe button, and if it doesn't work, I contact the company and tell them. The ones I'm reporting are obviously scams or phishing schemes or rip-offs in one respect or another.

I'm not sure how I got on this list. Did I enter the wrong giveaway? Are they finding it online through my blog? Did a "legitimate" giveaway sell my information to a list service? Or did Facebook or Google sell my address?

Here's what I'm considering doing. Tell me what you think of the idea.

I'll get my own domain and email service with "unlimited emails." Instead of creating one email box, I'll create one for every sweep I enter. I'm not saying it won't take time to set it all up. Or maybe I let all those "random" addresses feed into a catch-all mailbox that I'll check. So, when I sign up at the official Hershey chocolate site, I'll use hershey@mydomain. When I sign up at a freebie site, I'll use thisfreebiesite@mydomain. With that naming pattern, I will easily be able to track who sold my information, and take good solid action against them. I can try to contact their ISP and forward very specific information to the government's spam address, so that hopefully, they'll be blackballed. I can confidently report the issue to the sweepstakes website I use, and maybe their "giveaways" won't be listed anymore.

Do you think this could work?

Day 9: Why I Want the OED

2011-03-09T22:30:00.001-06:00

Today's topic in It's Gravy Baby's 31-day photo and post challenge is to write about your most treasured item. Since I'm not sure I can pick just one item from my treasured Star Wars collection, I turn to my bookshelf to find one of my most beloved books.

I'm reading a book right now called The Glamour of Grammer, in which the author, Roy Peter Clark, says that his two favorite dictionaries are The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and The Oxford English Dictionary.


The AHD 4th edition, was published in 2006.

I have an AHD, 3rd Edition, which I dearly love, because it doesn't just define words, it gives some word history and peculiarities of usage. Here's an example that I remember because of a personal story.

My parents grew up in Pensacola, Florida, and it's colloquial for people to use the word "carry" in connection with giving someone a ride. My mom used to talk about how, when she was in Spain, one of her good friends poked fun at her about it. The friend needed to go to the commissary or exchange, and my mom said, "I'll carry you up there." Of course, she meant that she'd give her a ride in the car, not that she'd physically pick her up and carry here there. That usage of "carry" is regional, and the AHD explains that. It makes the dictionary cool.

Yes, I am one of those people who can pick up a dictionary to look up one word, spend three hours on digressive journeys into word meaning, usage and history, and maybe, by the end of it, I'll actually get around to looking up the word I started out to look up.

I don't recall what I was trying to look up the day I learned the words "putti" and "étagère." I think putti was one of the guide words at the top of the pages. It's the plural of putto, which is an Italian word for a little cherub. I found étagère because of the lovely illustration of an ornate piece of furniture with shelves, and I see it all the time now on multi-lingual boxes containing plastic shelf units. A far cry from the gorgeous antique piece pictured in my AHD.

StatuaryPlace.com has a whole lot of
putti on its étagère.

I discovered these two words on the same day, while working in our family-owned craft store. We had little ceramic cherubs and we had shelf units, and so, I used my new words in a sentenced and with a related action. I put the putti on the étagère. Go ahead. Say it.

It's fun isn't it?

It's been at least 15 years since our store closed, and my husband and I will still point to an angel figurine on a shelf and comment about the putti on the étagère.

I can't remember exactly how I got the AHD. I won a box of books from American Family Publishers, and I remember a red Webster's Dictionary in there, and the AHD might have been part of it, too. I know when I worked at B. Dalton Booksellers later, we had the same edition on the shelf and I used to recommend it when someone was looking for a good dictionary, especially if it was a graduation gift or something special, because it was $75.

While I was working at B. Dalton, we also had a two-volume set of the OED that came with a little magnifying glass because the text was so small. I want to say it was $150 or $200. I always kind of wanted that one, too.... Until I discovered the real OED. The one with 20 volumes.

All those words!

The OED covers word history, and usage, and includes quotes to show the words in usage. Oh how I would love to own a set. The closest I ever got was when an online store offered a set on sale for $500. It's going for about twice that right now on Amazon, and I think the price has come down; perhaps because a third edition is in the works or maybe because print is going by the wayside. It might as well have been five million dollars, as Scarlett O'Hara sort of said about the taxes on Tara, because we didn't have an extra $500 to spend on an overblown dictionary.

Sometimes, like this evening, I plug the title into my favorite search engine to see if any sales come up. I will own an OED someday. And I'll read it, too.

In the meantime, if you're looking for a good dictionary, I recommend one of these.

Why I Oppose the "Road Rage Act

2011-03-09T00:47:00.000-06:00

Today in Tallahassee, state lawmakers heard the first reading of Florida House Bill 177, the Motor Vehicles/Highway Safety Act.

While some portions of this bill sound like a good idea, I am opposed to its passage in its current form. Here’s why:

We have a lot of roads in this area that have two or three lanes of traffic flowing in the same direction. This proposed legislation would make it illegal to drive in the left lane if anyone else wants to drive faster.

Here’s a scenario. I own some property on the Nine Mile Road in Beulah. It’s a rural two-lane road where people routinely drive 10, 15, 20 miles over the speed limit. There’s been talk for years of widening the road due to increased traffic from housing developments and the Navy Federal Credit Union call center. It’s very unlikely that a turn lane will be installed in front of my driveway. That turn-in leads to three pieces of property and two are currently uninhabited. Other nearby driveways are the same. When you get to the neighborhoods and the call center, which are congregated east of my place, it’s a different story.

So, I get off the interstate and turn west. My property is a few miles down the road, on the south side. I have to turn left, and to do so, I take my life in my hands, because the, um, numbskulls that want to drive 70mph in a 55 zone certainly don’t want to slow down. They blow their horns, they pass on the shoulder.

If the road is widened to four lanes, my inclination would be to get in the left lane when I get off the interstate. It’s not that far to my turn, and if I get in the right lane, there’s a real possibility that I will not be able to get into the left lane when it’s time to make my turn. If they won’t slow down for me now, when there’s only one lane going west, what makes you think they’ll be willing to slow down or move right when I change lanes in front of them? The other possibility is that a steady stream of speeders in the left lane will effectively block me from getting over anyway.

Let’s look more closely at what the bill says:

1. On roads, streets, or highways having two or more lanes that allow movement in the same direction, a driver may not continue to operate a motor vehicle in the furthermost left-hand lane if the driver knows, or reasonably should know, that he or she is being overtaken in that lane from the rear by a motor vehicle traveling at a higher rate of speed. Paragraph (a) does not apply to a driver operating a motor vehicle in the furthermost left-hand lane if: The driver is driving the legal speed limit and is not impeding the flow of traffic in the furthermost left-hand lane;

In other words, if I’m driving the speed limit, I’m allowed to be in the left lane, unless someone else wants to race past me. Then I’m required to make it easier for the speeder to break the law.

2. The driver is in the process of overtaking a slower motor vehicle in the adjacent right-hand lane for the purpose of passing the slower moving vehicle so that the driver may move to the adjacent right-hand lane;

Now wait. If there’s a bus or an older person driving less than the speed limit in the right lane, I’m allowed to pass on the left. But am I required to wait until all the Speedy Gonzalezes are past before I can move into the left lane? Can I impede someone else in order to avoid being impeded?

3. Conditions make the flow of traffic substantially the same in all lanes or preclude the driver from moving to the adjacent right-hand lane;

I guess if both lanes of traffic are moving at about the same speed, it doesn’t matter which lane I’m in. But, if only speeders are supposed to use the left lane, then how did the traffic get backed up in that lane?

4. The driver's movement to the adjacent right-hand lane could endanger the driver or other drivers;

Okay, I’m not required to hit another vehicle in order to get out of Speedy’s way.

5. The driver is directed by a law enforcement officer, road sign, or road crew to remain in the furthermost left-hand lane; or

I hope this includes Florida’s mandatory rule that you move into the left lane when passing a law enforcement or emergency vehicle parked on the right shoulder.

6. The driver is preparing to make a left turn.

Ah, here we go. I’m allowed to be in the left lane to make a left turn. From I-10 to my turn on Nine Mile Road, it’s probably two or three miles. Is that too soon? Is five miles away too soon to get in the left lane, if I know that traffic usually gets heavier near where I need to make my turn?

Moving on, the next section is pretty convoluted with statute numbers, so I’ve removed most of those to make it easier reading.

Section 5. Section 316.1923, Florida Statutes, is amended to read:
Aggressive careless driving.
(1) "Aggressive careless driving" means committing three, two or more of the following acts simultaneously or in succession:
(a)(1) Exceeding the posted speed;
(b)(2) Unsafely or improperly changing lanes;
(c)(3) Following another vehicle too closely;
(d)(4) Failing to yield the right-of-way;
(e)(5) Improperly passing or failing to yield to overtaking vehicles;
(f)(6) Violating traffic control and signal devices.

A few years ago, a truck full of people who I don’t think had been driving in this country for long, was weaving in and out of its lane and, I felt, putting me at risk. I sped up a little to get past them. It was a 45 zone dropping to a 30 zone and there’s a traffic light in the middle that was yellow when I passed under it.

The truck full of immigrants turned left.

The policeman hiding on a side street pulled me over and ticketed me for speeding and for speeding up to run a red light.

He was old, his hands were shaking so much I’m surprised he was able to write the ticket, and he gave me no opportunity to speak. I wanted to fight the red light portion of the ticket in court, but my husband was certain the judge would take the cop’s side over mine in a he said/she said, and we’d have to pay court costs on top of the tickets.

So, under the proposed legislation, I would have received an additional ticket for Aggressive Careless Driving. The immigrants would have qualified for the same and were certainly driving more dangerously than I was, but I was the easy catch.

And that’s what’s going to happen with this law. A law enforcement officer looking to boost his ticket count at the end of the month is going to be looking for an easy mark so he can tack on that extra “road rage” ticket.

The rest of the month, law enforcement personnel will do what they do now. They’ll talk on their cell phones while vehicles race through red lights in front of them. They’ll ignore the tailgaters and the speeders, and they won’t even bother to use their own turn signals.

If there’s any chance the driver really is exhibiting signs of road rage, they’ll quickly turn off, because they won’t want to deal with someone who’s already steaming mad even before they see the blue lights in their rear view mirrors.

If lawmakers really want to cut down on dangerous driving, here’s what they’ll do:

Make it easier for drivers to report the reckless behavior of other drivers. I don’t think law enforcement does anything to investigate that kind of complaint right now. They can’t write a ticket based on a civilian’s report and the typical attitude around here is that the perp will be gone before they can respond, so why bother. The rule could be something like if they get six or ten complaints about a certain license plate number, they need to check out that driver, watch for him, and see if they can catch him at it. Road rage is probably regular behavior for that type of person.
Pass a law against using a cell phone while behind the wheel of a car. Period. No talking. Hands-free or not. No texting. No reading the message. No listening to voice mail. No surfing the internet. If you need directions, pull over, then make the call. If the phone rings, wait until you can pull over and then call them back. Unless you’re a transplant surgeon waiting for a donor organ, it’s probably not anything that can’t wait five minutes.
Encourage law enforcement officers to do their duty every day and not just the last few days of the month. If they put down their phones and pulled over the people who are twenty feet from the intersection when the light turns red and they still go through it, a lot of people would learn to slow down and stop in time, and that would help reduce the frustration that builds into road rage.
Conduct more license and registration checks - I haven’t seen one of those in years – and don't advertise the locations in advance or allow people to turn around and get out of the line. The point is to nab people who are driving illegally before they cause a wreck.

This legislation is unnecessary. It's somewhat ambiguous. And I believe it holds more opportunity to hurt the average person than to stop any truly dangerous and aggressive drivers.

Six Songs for Sweepers

2011-03-08T00:43:00.005-06:00

Here's my lucky playlist: the songs that make me feel lucky, the songs I hum when I'm feeling happy about a win or just dreaming about one.

1. "Something's Coming" from West Side Story [full lyrics]

This song is on my list because it's all about anticipating something good coming to you. What sweeper who's checking the mailbox, reading email, spotting the message light flashing on the answering machine, can't identify with this sentiment:

I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!

2. "Luck Be a Lady" from Guys and Dolls [full lyrics]

We all want luck to be good to us, don't we? Here's how the chorus to this song goes:

Luck be a lady tonight
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck if you've ever been a lady to begin with
Luck be a lady tonight.

3. "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" from Gold Diggers of 1933 [full lyrics]

I know this song mostly from the stage musical 42nd Street but Ginger Rogers sang it first in the 1933 film.

It's the tune I hum or sing when I get a really good cash win, and not nearly as often as I'd like. All together now....

We're in the money,
We're in the money;
We've got a lot of what it takes to get along!
We're in the money,
The sky is sunny;
Old Man Depression, you are through,
You done us wrong!

4. "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" [listen here]

This cute little ditty was written in 1927, and it's very short, so I'm going to print all the lyrics here.

I sing it to myself when I'm looking for four-leaf clovers and especially when I find one.

I'm looking over a four-leaf clover
That I overlooked before.
One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain,
Third is the roses that grow in the lane.
No need explaining, the one remaining
Is somebody I adore.
I'm looking over a four-leaf clover
That I overlooked before.

5. "Money (That's What I Want)" [full lyrics]

Apparently this song was most famously recorded by a group called the Flying Lizards. I know it because it's on the Josie and the Pussycats movie soundtrack.

Don't the song's opening lyrics say it all for the sweeper on a quest for cash prizes?

The best things in life are free,
But you can give them to the birds and bees.
I want money!

6. "I Wanna Be Rich" [full lyrics]

This is the refrain that comes to mind when I'm buying a ticket to Lotto or Powerball.

I want money, lots and lots of money
I want the pie in the sky
I want money, lots and lots of money
So don't be asking me why

And those are my favorite songs about luck and money. Sorry, I couldn't come up with four more to make it a top 10 list. Do you have any songs to add to the Sweeper's Playlist?

Day Seven - My Day

2011-03-08T00:07:00.000-06:00

I woke up this morning at 7:08am. Actually, I woke up 15 minutes earlier than that, but I have the bedroom clock set ahead, so those are the numbers I saw. I got up a few minutes later, and just a few minutes before the alarm was set to go off.

Remy made a diarrhea, which is good, because it was his first bowel movement in several days. He appears to have an enlarged colon, to go along with his abnormally small liver, and the x-rays last week showed that he's kind of impacted right now. Now, in addition to taking a syringe full of Clavamox, he also gets a syringe full of a laxative. He starts drooling when he sees the syringe.

I woke up with my shoulder aching, and my back knotted up even more the closer I got to work. With a major fundraiser coming up plus subscription renewals beginning soon, plus all the usual stuff, it's just an extra stressful time. One person was taking a vacation day and another was out sick, so it was pretty quiet. I did get a little bit accomplished, but not as much as I'd like.

We were hoping we'd see signs that Remy went to the bathroom more, but nothing in the boxes was soft, so he probably didn't go any more. Tim and I will both feel better, I'm sure, when he's cleaned out and hopefully back to normal.

After doing the evening medicating, feeding, my shower, calling mom, I finally had a chance to sit down. Then I found problems with our email service online. I've got to find a new service. My husband says use Gmail because it's got unlimited online storage, which is what I need, but I figure if I'm paying someone to host my domain and provide me with "unlimited" email, which should that mean unlimited email addresses but a cap on how many messages I can have in my box. So I ended up spending time trying to make sure that the mail I already had downloaded won't disappear like the last time I tried to download anything. I hope I have it set up now. I lost a lot of irreplaceable messages from friends and my late father when Thunderbird "synched" with webmail and deleted everything that I had downloaded. Stupid me, I didn't think I had to keep it online AND offline. I thought the point was to be able to download the mail to keep it.

Dealing with all that (and the memory of what I lost and my anger that I had set everything up to download the mail so that we could change ISPs, and it turned out to be for nothing because my husband renewed the hosting package anyway) has only made me more tense.

Then I started trying to check my current mail and enter my sweeps for today. And now, look at the time, it's already tomorrow. Like sands and all that. My day.

Day Four - An Experience That Made Me Who I Am

2011-03-05T01:20:00.000-06:00

In the late '80s, I attended some major science fiction conventions and a bunch of smaller ones. Here are the highlights:

1986 - World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon), Atlanta, Georgia
1987 - Official Star Wars 10th Anniversary Convention, Los Angeles, California
1988 - WorldCon, New Orleans, Louisiana
1989 - WorldCon, Boston, Massachusetts
1991 - WorldCon, Chicago, Illinois

Most of the big cons were attended by publicity reps from the major Hollywood studios. (The only name I can remember is Jeff Walker from Warner Bros). Remember, back then, you couldn't go to YouTube or Apple to see upcoming movie trailers. You had to wait for publicity stills to be published in a magazine (probably three months after the studio released them). When the studio reps did their slide shows about upcoming science fiction, fantasy or comic book-related films, the rooms were packed.

I thought that would be the coolest job in the world. Of course, I'd already graduated from college, and I don't even know if UWF had a public relations degree back then. (They have a great program now.) I have no idea what these guys did when they weren't traveling to science fiction conventions to talk to geeks about movies.

A few years after my first convention (that Atlanta WorldCon), I was offered an unbelievable opportunity to live that dream. A friend of mine (we met at the Star Wars con in '87 and later worked together at Walt Disney World) brought me a flyer for the Sci-Fi Channel. Imagine! A television channel that would show SF movies and TV shows all day, every day. (Too bad we don't have one now.) This was something that I'd dreamed of, but I certainly didn't have the money or connections to start a TV network. I wrote a passionate letter saying that I'd love to work for them, and they offered me a job!

This was before the Sci-Fi Channel ever got on the air. First, the cable companies had to be convinced to carry the channel. You have to have an audience (or at least a potential audience) before you start broadcasting. SFC reps would travel around talking to all the different cable systems, large and small, rural and urban, and try to get them to sign an agreement to put the Sci-Fi Channel on their line-up, if and when the Channel launched.

It was my job to encourage fans to write to their cable companies, demonstrating their interest in watching an all-sci-fi network. I spent all day, every day responding to letters from interested people, taking phone calls, making calls and writing letters, mailing packets of flyers to conventions and fan clubs, and speaking at conventions, mostly the ones in Central and South Florida within easy driving distance of Sci-Fi HQ. It really was a dream job.

It also led me to my husband. One of the conventions I was able to attend as a Sci-Fi Channel representative was the big one, ChiCon, the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in 1991. Several fan club leaders I'd been working with were going to be there, so it was chance to meet them face to face; distribute flyers, posters and buttons; and to answer questions at my very own panel. (I didn't have a slide show.) The president of a big Doctor Who fan club in the midwest was an SFC supporter, so I had arranged to meet him, and when I went up to his room, his wife and a couple of friends were also there. One of those friends and I hit it off, and two weeks later, we were engaged.

Over the next few months, USA Networks decided to buy the Sci-Fi Channel (which consisted primarily of all those signed agreements from the cable systems), and I didn't know if I'd have a job or not. I wasn't sure I wanted to live in New York anyway (I'd spent a couple of days there on my home from the Boston WorldCon, September 1989, and it smelled). So, I resigned, got married, and moved to Missouri, where they never feed you snakes before ripping your heart out and lowering you into hot pits.

Fast forward and I'm now working in the public relations field again. The whole ball game has changed, and I don't know if the studios still have people who travel to conventions to present slide shows (if so, now they're Powerpoint presentations), show video clips, and tell the fans all the wonderful things happening in Hollywood. I'd still love to have that job.

I can safely say that I am who I am, a happily married wife and a public relations professional, because of my experiences at those conventions a long time ago in states far, far away.

Day Three - The People Who Make My World Go Around

2011-03-05T00:28:00.001-06:00

My mom (in Mansfield, Indiana; left), because she's always been so supportive of me. She's also a little crazy, and I think it runs in the family.

My husband, for making me laugh, for encouraging me, and for always making me feel special.

My friend Liz, because we're so different and yet so alike, and because she is such a strong, smart, vibrant personality.

Day Two - My Favorite Show

2011-03-02T00:01:00.001-06:00

I am participating in It's Gravy Baby's 31 Day Photo & Prompt Challenge. For Day 2, the prompt is to tell you about my favorite show.

This one takes me back a bit.

My favorite TV show of all time is Gilligan's Island. I loved the show when I was a kid, and when it came out on DVD in 2004, I bought all three seasons, 99 episodes plus the original pilot with a few different actors.

I love the show because it's funny on several levels. I pick up on things as an adult that as a child, I either didn't understand or took it to mean something else. I also love it because you really can learn something from the series.

Here's an example from real life. Co-worker A was getting married. I asked co-worker B if she was going to the wedding. She said no, she had other stuff to do, and she wasn't invited anyway. That made no sense to me. So I went to co-worker A and said, "Co-worker B told me that she didn't receive an invitation to your wedding. Did you not send her one for some reason? Or did it get lost in the mail?" He assured me that she had been sent an invite and he'd send her another one to make sure she got it. She didn't come anyway, at least not that I saw (it was a huge wedding), but at least maybe her feelings weren't hurt.

How is this related to Gilligan's Island? In one episode, the Howells are throwing their annual ball (The Howell Cotillion) and everyone's excited about it, except that on the way to deliver the invitations, Mr. Howell tripped, and he lost the one for the Skipper. So, the Skipper didn't get his invitation, and he's all bummed and one by one the other Castaways decide that the Howells are just being snobby and they're going to have their own party instead of going to the Cotillion. Then the Howells feel bad, because no one came to their party. It all gets worked out in the end, of course, but the viewer comes away with a valuable lesson. If someone who should have received an invitation to the party doesn't get invited, just go ask the host if it was deliberate or a mistake. Of course, the episode would have been over in a minute-and-a-half if Gilligan or Ginger or Mary Ann or the Professor had gone to Mr. or Mrs. Howell and said, "Hey, what gives? Why wasn't the Skipper invited?"

Gilligan's Island also taught me the scientific name for aspirin, explained the gold standard, illustrated gold fever, and taught me the definition of a reverse tsunami. Okay, that last is a stretch. I've heard the media use the term "reverse tsunami" a few times in recent years, and I wonder how many of those reporters have the phrase in their minds because they saw Gilligan's Island when they were kids.

See, in the show, Duke the surfer (Denny Miller) rides a tsunami from Hawaii to the Island. He spends a few days there building up his strength and impressing the girls. The Professor predicts that a reverse tsunami will be coming along and that Duke could surf it back to Hawaii and send a rescue party. By that time, Duke wants to stay in the island paradise with Ginger and Mary Ann, and hilarity ensues as they enlist the Professor and Gilligan to play their boyfriends in order to drive Duke away. He takes off on the reverse tsunami, but as he glides into the harbor, he bangs his head, and he can't remember where he was for the past two weeks. Awww.

As a kid, I took their word for it that a tsunami or tidal wave was an actual hang 10-style wave, and I accepted that if conditions were right, a reverse tsunami could bring the wave back the way that it came. After the events of December 2005, I think we all know now that a tsunami is a tidal surge, a wall of water that brings the ocean onto the coast.

A quick search of news events turned up a "reverse tsunami" story from Southern California; in that case, instead of flooding the coastline, the ocean receded very quickly, basically like a really fast and really low, low tide. You can view ABC 7 News coverage here. In 2006, a dam broke in Hawaii, and the water flooded across land to the ocean, destroying homes and killing seven people. In an AP wire story, witnesses described the effect as being like a reverse tsunami. I don't think anyone could have surfed it to another island. Of course, Duke wasn't just anyone. He was one of Hawaii's greatest surfers.

So anyway, that's why I love Gilligan's Island.

Day One - 31 Day Challenge

2011-03-01T23:01:00.000-06:00

I read about It's Gravy Baby's 31 Day Photo and Prompt Challenge over at Robyn's Online World, and I decided to participate. The first challenge is to post a photo of yourself with 10 facts.

   1. I love Star Wars, and I collect the toys and memorabilia.
   2. Nine cats call me Meowmmy.
   3. I don't get enough sleep.
   4. In high school & college, I studied Spanish (3 years), German (2 years), French (2 years), and Italian (2 years). Today, I can fluently speak English.
   5. I worked for the Sci-Fi Channel when it was just a concept.
   6. I used to be in Mensa, until I couldn't afford the membership dues.
   7. I started first grade when I was four years old.
   8. I adore actor/director/writer Kenneth Branagh and traveled to England twice to see him perform on stage.
   9. I've been to Tatooine. (Really! Okay, it was Death Valley where they filmed some of the Jawa scenes for the very first Star Wars film.)
10. My favorite play by William Shakespeare is Hamlet.

If you have a blog, you can join the 31 Day Photo and Prompt Challenge by clicking the button on my sidebar. There are NO rules. You can participate one day or every day. You can simply put up a photo or you can write up a long post. Just have fun with it.

The Credit Monitoring Nightmare Continues

2011-03-01T22:44:00.000-06:00

The day after I posted An Open Letter to My Credit Card Company, my husband answered the phone. The conversation went like this:

Husband: Hello?
Caller: May I speak to [my name as it is on my card]?
Husband: She's unavailable at the moment.
Caller: I'll call back another time.
Husband: Wait! Is this Bank of America? [You may as well know.]
Caller: Yeeessss.
Husband: Is this a 'courtesy call'?
Caller: Yeeessss.
Husband: Is this in regard to a credit monitoring program?
Caller: Oh, no, [mumbles something about a free credit report]
Husband: Uh-huh. Over the past week she's told two people by phone to make sure she's on the no-call list and she filled out the form on the website. We're now investigating what legal action we can take if this harassment continues.
Caller: Oh. I'll make sure that your account is updated to show that you've opted out [or something like that].

Since then, I haven't received any calls. Or maybe they just called when we weren't home and didn't leave a message. I'll keep you posted.

Living at the Speed of Light

2011-02-24T00:13:00.003-06:00

The pace of life gets faster every year. Don't you think so?

My mother, and her mother before her, used to warn about "burning the candle at both ends." In other words, don't stay up late and get up early and not get enough sleep in the middle. So what do I do? I stay up until 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning and get up at 7:15, on weekdays at least. There never seems to be enough hours in the day to accomplish everything.

Are you old enough to remember when we thought computers would make things easier and we'd have so much more freetime? They certainly made communication faster, but are the quick emails, Facebook updates, tweets and text messagesthe kind of quality communiques that our parents and grandparents exchanged? Heck, I still have letters from my teenage years, when I had penpals, that are more substantive than any communication I've had in the past ten years.

Do you recall the days, not so long ago, when only doctors and a handful of real estate agents had a mobile phone? Have theymade us more productive? No, they just make driving or crossing the street more dangerous, because at least a third of thepeople behind the wheel at any given time will be holding a phone to their heads or reading a text or typing a message andpaying no attention at all to what's going on around them.

A prophet named Mother Shipton wrote to following couplets during the first half of the sixteenth century:

Around the world men's thoughts will fly,
quick as the twinkling of an eye.
And water shall great wonders do,
How strange, and yet it shall come true.

All those years ago, she saw it coming. Did you?

It used to be forever between Easter and Christmas, and now the days, months, years just whiz by as though the Earth is speeding up in its journey around the sun.

Or is it just me?

An Open Letter to My Credit Card Company

2011-02-22T22:00:00.001-06:00

I’m actually returning your call. Someone tried to call me twice today, so it must be urgent.

Oh, that’s really odd, because I received a “courtesy call” last night, and I told the representative that I was not interested in your credit protection service and that I did not want to be signed up for anything. Then I called and spoke to another representative and asked her to add my name to your no-call list.

While I understand that no-call list may not transfer instantaneously to your call center – although there’s no reason why it couldn’t – the fact that I rejected your credit monitoring service yesterday should clearly have prevented me from getting another call the very next day touting the same service.

And you know what? I had basically the same conversation with two of your representatives maybe a month ago. A young man called, and I listened to his spiel and then said I didn’t want to be signed up for anything, not to sign me up to get the so-called “free” credit report because I didn’t want to bear the burden of having to call and cancel after “first month free.” And then he said he’d send out the information in the next couple of days. And I said no. And he said he’d send it out, and I said he’d better not. And then I hung up and called back immediately to verify that I hadn’t been enrolled in anything.

The other thing that’s really ticking me off tonight is that my husband answered the phone both times this evening; I was not at home. He’s on the account. His name is on a credit card that has the same account number embossed on it; his name is on the checks that come to you whenever a payment is made. Yet, the callers ask for me and when my husband politely asks the nature of the call, the representative chatters, “Courtesy call from [financial institution].” Click.

It’s one thing to call every year or maybe even every six months, but come on. How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not interested in your credit protection scheme? You dangle the carrot of a free credit report, when in fact it’s not really free. It comes with the onus of having to call and cancel the service in order to prevent having to pay a monthly fee that I don’t want to pay.

And really, your automated credit monitoring service doesn’t cost much to operate. You pay a human for a few minutes to enter my account information in the system (or maybe to check a box and turn the service on), and then your computers watch for inconsistencies.

How about providing a free (really free – no strings attached) copy of my credit report. You could send it with information about how your credit monitoring service works and a rate card, so I could see how just a few cents a day could buy me peace of mind. Come to think of it, you could easily offer credit monitoring as a free service, and you’d probably save money. You’d no longer have to pay a call center full of people to dial and redial and redial, asking the same people if they want the same service today that they said no to yesterday and last week and last month.

Finally, when I traveled out of the country, my other credit card company, the one connected to my checking accounts, called me a few days later to make sure the charges were legitimate. I didn’t have to pay them to do that. They did it in appreciation of my business. You could do the same and maybe counteract some of the negative publicity your company has been garnering during the recession.

Sincerely Yours.

Plagiarism in the News

2011-02-18T00:49:00.000-06:00

2011 - British newspaper The Daily Mail is accused of copying large sections of a story from The New York Times without attribution. The Mail responded by removing the suspect passages and by exchanging the Mail reporter's byline with the generic "Daily Mail Reporter." [Source: MediaPost]

2005 - Nearly a dozen publications respond to allegations that stories contained factual errors or had been plagiarized, at least in part. [Source: Regret the Error]

2003 - Reporter Jayson Blair resigns from the New York Times amid allegations that he plagiarized certain details of several stories and fabricated other details. Accusations of inaccurate reporting were made by staffers at the college newspaper where he had served as an editor and reporter. [Source: Wikipedia]

1998 - Associated Editor Stephen Glass is fired from The New Republic after Lead Editor Charles Lane investigated complaints about a story's veracity. The senior staff subsequently learned that more than half of Glass' articles for the publication contained inaccuracies or, in some cases, were complete fiction. [Source: Wikipedia]

I'm sure I could go back and back and back through the history of journalism to find examples of plagiarism, inaccuracies and outright lies. Over 100 years ago, publisher William Randolph Hearst allegedly sent this message to artist Frederic Remington on assignment in Cuba: "You supply the pictures. I'll supply the war."

I blame two factors for the seeming increase in faulty and unethical reporting.

SENSATIONALISM

News changed on September 11, 2001. Everyone was after the latest facts, first about the terrorist attacks of the day and later about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where for years, viewers could choose between three major broadcast networks and a couple of cable news channels, suddenly half a dozen news options on cable were vying with the networks for a rapidly dwindling pool of viewers. The internet gives people instant access to information from eyewitnesses, the man on the street, bloggers, and YouTube videos.

I remember on 9/11 hearing reports coming in about a possible truck bomb near the White House, I believe it was. At least one jet airliner was missing and a plane crash had been reported in Pennsylvania - but no one knew yet that the downed plane was the missing plane. Reporters were talking to witnesses in New York who reported hearing a missile or seeing a small plane crash into the first World Trade Tower.

As that day and that story and the related stories went on, it seems to me that the 24-hour-news stations decided it was more important to report every little tidbit and then verify it later than to verify it before putting it out there. They wanted to be able to say, "You heard it here first." Mistakes never seemed to be acknowledged; they just stopped reporting them.

I was working in local news at the time; we were still in the business of getting our facts straight before going on the air.

In the ensuing years, too, we've seen more and more opinion presented as news. Many outlets have an obvious bias. The parent company of the news organization I worked for from 1999 to 2007 owned quite a few TV stations. I worked for an ABC affiliate, and we often used network-produced packages on major stories. After awhile, the parent company required us to run certain pieces produced by their Washington bureau in lieu of reports produced by the "liberal media" at ABC.

The sensationalism and rumor-mongering were fueled by ratings. The proliferation of cable news channels along with ever-increasing web-based sources for news and information have led to furious grasping for audience. Newspapers struggling to stay afloat, TV stations and networks scrabbling for ratings, and new media fighting for revenue will do or say anything to get people talking about them and tuning in.

STAFF REDUCTIONS

At the same time as all these media outlets are trying to one-up each other in order to lure bigger audiences, they are trying to cut costs. I don't know how much any organization is losing. I know some newspapers have folded, at least in the traditional print sense; they may still be present online. That could be because they're operating in the red or maybe they're breaking even, but that's not what any business is about, even the business of information. Business is about profits.

In order to minimize cost, thus maximizing income, staff is being cut. I doubt that most newspapers have proofreaders or copy editors anymore. When I worked in TV news, I was lucky to have anchors who read over the scripts before the show and questioned anything that was obviously incorrect or even looked a little fishy. I read the stories that reporters turned in for my show. I wrote a lot of stories from Associated Press wire copy, press releases, and/or interviews collected in the field by videographers working alone. In those cases, I counted on my anchors catching me in any mistakes.

Honest, legitimate mistakes can and do happen. That's why it's important to have a team all watching out for each other. When I worked on the production side, doing graphics and supers, I'd read over the script, not just the notes on what words I was supposed to put on the screen. I'd question anything that didn't seem to match up. I'd look up spellings of streets or names or I'd just ask the producer to check it. Did I make mistakes? Of course. I know how to spell cemetery now, after I typed it cemetary on an over-the-shoulder graphic that went out on the air.

Unfortunately, a lot of people nowadays are so focused on their own jobs or texting their friends or checking their email that they go through their day with blinders on, never understanding that the whole organization would function better with a little teamwork.

But, I digress.

Every time I turn around, I hear of someone else laid off from the daily paper. I'll talk with a local reporter or editor and find out they've had yet another duty piled on their already overfull plates. In addition to writing the stories and prepping them for publication or broadcast, now they have to post on Facebook and tweet the headline with links to the website, where they were the ones required to reformat and post the story.

Staff cutbacks lead to sloppy reporting, typos, and mistakes. Did they lead to every case of plagiarism and fictionalizing listed at the start of this post? No, of course not, but they certainly aren't helping. Not having enough staff to cross check and verify facts makes it easier for the falsehoods to slip through.

I worry about the future of news. People need someplace they can trust for accurate, unbiased facts so they can make up their own minds about the important issues of the day. I fear we are losing that.

Discover Your Life's Purpose

2011-02-13T21:09:00.005-06:00

Have you ever paused on the journey through life and wondered if you're doing what you're meant to be doing, living the life you're supposed to live? I most certainly have. I've often looked back at the meandering path my life's taken, wondered at the unexpected joys I've experienced around one turn, speculated on what might have been if I'd traveled a different route.

Looking back is one thing. Look ahead, especially as the years pile up, and you may begin to question your choices and direction.

Have I left my mark in the world?
What should I or could I have done differently?
If I had made different choices at certain points in my life, would I have missed some of the really wonderful things that have happened?

If you are dissatisfied, it's not too late to accomplish some of your goals or achieve a few of your youthful dreams. You just have to take action NOW, before it is too late.

A few weeks ago, I read a book called Chazown by Craig Groeschel. The title is pronounced khaw-ZONE; it's the Hebrew word for vision. Groeschel is a Christian minister, Waterbrook Multnomah is a Christian book division of Random House, and the book's focus is on finding God's purpose for your life.

I'm not a very religious person; I have beliefs, but I don't go to church, and I'm not much for God talk. However, the kind folks at Waterbrook Multnomah invited me to join their "Blogging for Books" program, and who am I to turn down the opportunity for a free book to read? That said, if you're a deeply spiritual person, you will find this book to be a detailed guide on figuring out what you should do next in your life. If you're not deeply spiritual, or if you are a deeply spiritual follower of a non-Christian religion, if you are able to get past the God talk, you will find good advice on finding purpose to drive you through the rest of your life.

The cover of Chazown, in addition to the title and author, features three short sentences:

Define Your Vision.
Pursue Your Passion.
Live Your Life on Purpose.

The book begins by asking you to write your obituary. If you died today, what would people say about you? What have you accomplished? Have you changed the world around you? Have you been a positive influence on the lives of your friends, family or total strangers?

See, that's one of the things I've been thinking about the past few years. As I mentioned, I'm 45, and the day when my obituary will be published is rushing towards me. Yikes! If I want it to be a good one, I'd better get cracking.

But where to begin?

Craig Groeschel says you should start at the end. Write the obituary you want. Do you want your loved ones to remember you for the time you spent working late at the office, the hours you spent posting photos on Facebook, the mundane cell phone conversations ("What are you doing?"). Or do you want to be the person who taught children self respect and responsibility by coaching a ball team or volunteering at your local school? Do you want to be remembered for raising money for your favorite charity? Collecting coats for the homeless? Giving your time and talents to renovate a community center?

See, you can't just say, "I want to be remembered for helping people." That's too vague. You need a specific goal, and then you know what you have to do to achieve that goal.

In his book, Groeschel helps you create a specific plan so that instead of living life each day as it comes, you live it with a purpose. Each short, easy-to-read chapter helps you narrow down the choices and focus your vision.

First, you'll define your core values (examples: loyalty to family, passion for justice), identify your spiritual gifts (giving, teaching, service), and realize how your past experiences (a menial job, an oops moment) have prepared you for the road ahead.
The next step is to identify where those three areas overlap, identify your Chazown, and set down a focused description in a few words.
Next, the book helps you analyze five key areas in your life now: your relationship with God, relationships with people, financial situation, your health, and your work; and helps you relate them to the accomplishment of your Chazown.

Along the way, Groeschel shares stories from his own life, examples from his parishioners and friends, that show you how these esoteric ideas apply in real life. Key thoughts are set apart from the rest of the text so they're easy to identify. Each section is summarized with review questions, kind of like in a textbook, to help you think through and retain what you've just read. The book also contains an appendix of worksheets, and throughout the book, you're referred to extra support materials on The Chazown Experience website.

This book will help you look at your life with a critical eye and guide you towards living with meaning and purpose. Maybe you're just starting out in life, or you're coming through a bad period and need to make positive changes, or perhaps you're frustrated and unsatisfied with your accomplishments. If you read this book with thoughtfulness and intent, you will learn about yourself and find ways to lead a more fulfilling life.

I received a review copy of Chazown through Waterbrook Multnomah's "Blogging for Books" program. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

One-Page History of Doctor Who

2011-02-11T00:00:00.004-06:00

Doctor Who fan and artist Bob Canada created this infographic and posted it on his flickr page. Nerdist featured it, then other sites picked it up and so on and so forth. Bob commented that this version is updated with corrections and suggestions made by some of the thousands of people who've seen the artwork. This is the final version, "for now," and he plans to make it available as a poster.

While we're waiting on confirmation of when the spring series will begin, here's a tidbit for North American fans. Panini (the sticker book people) are publishing a magazine called Doctor Who Insider. The first issue should hit newsstands April 7.

Also, check out the BBC's Back in the USA page. It features photos of the Doctor's recent visit to the American West, as well as a recap of past adventures involving American locations and characters.

My two cents on social media marketing

2011-02-04T01:07:00.000-06:00

Lee over at My Sentiments ExactLee wrote a great post about public relations, marketing and blogs. Here is my response:

Thank you for this, Lee. I've been blogging for quite a while and no one ever visited. Of course, I wasn't out promoting my blog. It was more of a daily diary for me, and I hoped someone would notice it. For the last three years or so, I've been visiting a lot of blogs to enter giveaways, and I started reading some of the blogs, like yours, more regularly, because they speak to me, I feel like I have something on common with the person or people behind them.

It didn't take long for me to start becoming a little envious of the opportunities that some of the bloggers are getting. I haven't kept up my "post to my blogs every day" resolution, but I have posted at least once a week on each, which is an improvement. I started hosting a few giveaways as well, to build my traffic count. I mean, a niche audience is one thing, but no audience isn't going to do anything for someone trying to sell a product.

I can see where the PR people are coming from. I mean, I work in public relations myself, at a local non-profit theatre. I belong to an organization of PR professionals, and I read some marketing trade publications, and one of the things we all think about and talk about is how to qualify what we're doing. ROI (return on investment) is all important. Social media may be "free" but it costs time. Someone has to recruit the bloggers, create the electronic press kits delivered to them, pack and ship the review samples, pack and ship the prizes for the giveaways, deal with the missing package or item that got broken on the way. The sponsor has a budget for each promotion, which may involve using staff or outsourcing to an agency that specializes in using social media. So let's say they're giving away a $100 prize and it costs $10 in postage, boxes, labels; it takes 10 minutes to pack the box, toss in the "congrats" letter, print an invoice, and slap on the label. At $12 an hour, that's $2 in cost. Assuming the $100 retail is double what it cost the company to produce, you're already up to $62 for each prize winner. And that's not counting the cost of making arrangements with the two-dozen bloggers who are going to post the reviews, following up on their posts to get copies of everything for the file. The CEO or the CFO for that sponsor wants to know that the $2500 they spent on that promotion is going to bring them actually cash money customers. A sudden spike in orders may be an indicator, but what if I don't buy it for three months until I have some extra money? What if I use a coupon - how does the marketing person prove that the blogging promotion worked and it wasn't just the coupon that did it?

They produce numbers. 25 blogs hosted giveaways. The total readership of these blogs during the period of the promotion is x-thousand people, therefore those x-thousand people were exposed to the production. Y-hundred people commented, therefore they have decided that they want the product, and if they didn't win, they might buy it.

If you tell the CEO that the social media promotion reached a potential 250 new customers, he's not going to be as impressed as if he reached 25,000, even if his niche product is perfect for the 250, and the 25,000 figure if they win, they can sell it on eBay.

Remember, a lot of these people are used to running ads on television or in newspapers, where millions of people might see it. We know that newspapers are folding, readership is down, people are watching TV by Tivo or Netflex or Hulu, so they're not seeing as many commercials. They used to mass messaging not personal messaging.

I think we're going to see this turn around, but it's going to take a major shift in mindset, because it is time intensive, and time is money. So the front line PR people have to do as much as they can with the small amounts they're allotted, then they have to give the big guys the kind of results they can appreciate, so they can get more money to do the job right.

That's my two-cents, for what it's worth.

Movie Review: RED

2011-01-28T00:54:00.003-06:00

I wanted to see RED when it came out in theatres. I like everyone in the cast, and I love action-comedies. When it came out last fall, I heard a lot of mixed reviews about it. Some people were complaining because it's based on a graphic novel that is apparently dark and very serious, and "Hollywood turned it into a rom-com," the comics fans would say disdainfully.

I didn't get to see it in theatres, because we were busy the first couple of weekends it was out, and then the third weekend it was only in one theatre, not very convenient to our house and only at one time in the morning, and by the time I looked for it on Saturday, it was too late to make it. I think there was a fourth week and the times still weren't convenient. We have to give our cat Indy an insulin shot at 8:00pm, so a movie with a listed starting time of 5:30pm or later is simply not possible.

Now the movie is out on DVD, so we picked it up the "Special Edition" this evening (Walmart for $15).

First, a quick summary:

Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired CIA operative who's so bored and lonely that he keeps tearing up his retirement checks so he has an excuse to talk to Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) at the call center. When a team of operatives shows up trying to kill him, he realizes that Sarah is at risk, so he travels to her apartment and, when she freaks out, he kidnaps her. Over the course of the movie, they team up with several other retired operatives (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox) to find out why he's a target, and uncover a conspiracy designed to protect a powerful politician.

The movie is well-paced and very funny. I laughed out loud several times and also gasped at some of the incredible near-miss action sequences. I know most of it is done with computers now, but they had some very clever set-ups. It was well-plotted. We saw Sarah start to trust Frank and come to care for him. There was a great sense of camaraderie and sense of duty among the old timers. The younger CIA agent (Karl Urban) who is assigned to go after him, gives just about as good as he gets, but he can't get the upper hand on the seasoned retirees.

I don't remember much, if any bad language. There's no nudity. It's an action film, so there is a lot of violence. It's not particularly bloody, but people do get blown up.

I'm disappointed in the DVD because of the sparse special features. They have no business calling this a special edition. The trailer isn't even included. There's a commentary from a former CIA agent, some deleted and extended scenes, and something called "Access RED" that's supposed to include some interviews and trivia. I haven't watched any of the special features yet, but it doesn't sound like a lot.

If you enjoy '80s-style action movies, , if you like a well-thought-out story that's a bit of a mystery, or if you believe there's life after 40, then I think you'll enjoy the film RED.

Feed a cold, starve a fever, chicken soup and plenty of fluids

2011-01-20T01:42:00.000-06:00

For centuries, people shared tips on how to treat illness at home. Doctors were scarce, and for a long time, they didn't even have any special training. If something worked, you remembered it and you told your friends.

Along came medical schools and research hospitals, and learned doctors and scientists began to scoff at "old wives' tales." How could eating chicken soup possibly help anyone get over a viral infection?!

How indeed?

A researcher at the University of Nebraska Medical Center asked himself that question and decided to find out. He took his wife's chicken soup to the lab, and after getting some interesting results, he and his team tested store-bought soups as well. The results were published in the journal Chest and publicized on CNN's website.

In a nutshell, when we get a viral infection like a cold, our body sends out white blood cells called neutrophils that eat up germs. All that neutrophil activity stimulates the release of mucus, and that causes us to have stuffy or runny noses and leads to coughing. Many of the ingredients in chicken soup, including the base broth, help slow down the neutrophils, thus reducing the amount of mucus produced.

Personally, I think the heat from the soup and the steam rising from the bowl both help to break up mucus and improve breathing. The researcher didn't study that factor, but he said it could play a part in soup's effectiveness to relieve cold symptoms.

Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever

A Duke University doctor tackled the old adage to "feed a cold, starve a fever." That advice was first put in print in the 16th century. The idea was that a cold was caused because you got too cold; eating and drinking would help your body generate heat. If you had a fever, you needed to cool down, so don't eat so much. The Duke experts admit that there is something to the old idea. For one thing, if you have a fever, you probably won't have much of an appetite. Turns out, not eating helps the immune system focus its energy on fighting the bug, although if you're hungry, don't starve yourself.

When you have a cold, which usually lasts a week, you need nutrients to keep up your strength and give your body the energy it needs to fight off the infection. Vegetables, fruit juice and warm broths are recommended.

Drink Plenty of Fluids

A recent New York Times report began with the suggestion that maybe the age-old advice to drink plenty of fluids when you're sick may not carry much water. Scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, decided they wanted to review the facts about that common recommendation. They plowed through piles of old studies and medical journals and found out that while everyone seems to suggest drinking plenty of fluids, no one has really done any research on it.

Uh, guys? Maybe that's because we all know it works!

For one thing, we all know it's important to stay hydrated under normal circumstances. When you're congested, if you're taking medication to dry up your stuffy nose, it's going to dry out everything. In addition, meds or no meds, if you don't drink enough water, all that mucus is going to be really thick, and more difficult to expel. If you're properly hydrated, it's easier to blow your nose or cough the stuff up out of your lungs. Plus, what follows a stuffy nose? A sore throat. That's because of all the nasal drainage and coughing. Drinking plenty of water, hot tea, warm lemonade, and (ahem) chicken soup, will help keep your throat moist so it doesn't hurt as much.

Wash Your Hands

Okay, that's as much for before you get sick as after. Washing hands frequently (with soap and sing the alphabet song to make sure you wash long enough) will wash away the germs you pick up on door knobs, cash, shopping carts, etc. If you get sick, it'll help keep you from spreading those nasty germs to others. Good practice, all year long.

Stay well.

Thank You, Stanislav Petrov

2011-01-17T11:38:00.000-06:00

Where were you in September, 1983? I was in college. A typical day would have involved going to classes, maybe a few hours of work at the mall, possibly a rehearsal for the musical "Of Thee I Sing" - I was in the chorus and had a couple of lines, too.

In September, 1983, Stanislav Petrov was at work in a bunker new Moscow. He was monitoring an early warning system for any signs of nuclear attack. On September 26, while working a double shift, his screen turned red, indicating that an intercontinental ballistic missile had been launched from the United States and was streaking through the sky towards the USSR.

Petrov knew that tense relations between the US and USSR were even more strained than usual. Three weeks early, an American congressman and 268 other passengers and crew had been killed when Soviet jets shot down a Korean Air flight that had strayed into Soviet airspace. He also knew that the new early warning system was not without its problems. He waited. Then the system reported the launch of four more ICBMs. Still, he waited.

Had Petrov reported the situation to his superiors, they could easily have made the decision to launch a retaliatory strike that would have ended life as we know it. Petrov didn't panic. He considered the situation logically, and he knew that if the US were really entering nuclear war with the USSR, more than five missiles would be headed their way. No other systems, such as ground level radar, could corroborate the early warning system's report. So, the day passed, for the rest of the world, without fear, without war, because Petrov waited.

Thank you, sir.

The Wine that Time Forgot

2011-01-15T00:39:00.000-06:00

Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
1 Timothy, 5:23

In the 21st century, you might hear a doctor recommend drinking a glass of red wine to help prevent cancer. 3,500 years ago or so, the people who transcribed the Word of God included the above admonition to to drink a little wine for what ails you. But when exactly was wine invented? Recent archaeological discoveries suggest wine-making was going on more than 7,000 years ago!

How did scientists reach that conclusion?

Archaeological chemist Patrick E. McGovern examined the chemical residue found in ancient jars found at a 7,400 year old site in northwestern Iran and identified it as wine. Basically, they found someone's wine cellar, pantry or recycle bin. So, they know wine was around that long ago, but they still didn't know who was making the wine or exactly how.

Until now.

A multinational team of scientists this week announced the discovery of what McGovern calls, "the earliest winemaking facility that’s ever been found." It's about 6,100 years old.

REUTERS: Archaeologist Levon Patrosyan looks
at 6,100 year-old wine-making equipment.

The winemaking operation was found in an Armenian cave, covered in sheep poo which, for whatever reason, helped preserve the artifacts. Scientists located grape seeds, dried pressed grapes, stems and shriveled grapevines along with the tools of the trade: a vat for fermenting, storage jars, a clay bowl and horn drinking cup. I guess they needed to test the quality of the product. The archaeology team also found a shallow, thick-rimmed clay basin they believe was used for stomping the grapes. The basin was positioned so that the grape juice would flow into the two-foot-deep fermentation vat. Pretty clever, huh.

Elsewhere in the cave, the science team found a burial site where the bones of several people, from children to old men were stored in ceramic vessels. Co-director of the excavation, Dr. Gregory Areshian, believes the wine made in the cave was used in death or mourning rituals.

The cave also contained a 5,500-year-old leather shoe (woman's, size 7), smelted copper and a mold for casting ingots, and containers filled with an early trail mix - dried grapes, prunes, walnuts and almonds.

One of the next steps for this find is, according to Dr. Areshian, “a very extensive DNA analysis of the grape seeds” from the cave. He also says that botanists connected with the find are eager to plant some of the grape seeds and see what grows.

Now that's what I call heirloom gardening!

What's your favorite thing you've written?

2011-01-13T00:38:00.000-06:00

I've been writing since I was a little kid. Not just writing as in being able to form words on paper with a pen or pencil but writing as in creating a work of literature. I'm not saying what I wrote when I was a little kid was great literature or anything, but I did win second place in the third grade poetry contest with this gem:

Lady Kathleen Kelly is her name.
During her lifetime, she won lots of fame.
She was queen and ruled the land,
and all her courtship was very grand.
With all her courtiers she loved to chat,
but this is a dream, and Kathleen's a cat.
It was probably the twist ending that impressed the judges.

Long before Dances With Wolves, I wrote a story about a
frontier soldier who questioned mistreatment of tribes.

I'm not sure I have a favorite among all the writing I've done. Standouts among the stories I wrote when I was little, in elementary or middle school, are two kind of dark pieces. If I ever find them again (I'm sure they're boxed up somewhere), I'll post them online. Years before Dances with Wolves won an Oscar, I wrote a short story about a frontier soldier who questions treatment of a Native American tribe. What can I say, I watched a lot of old westerns on TV and my great-grandmother on my mom's side was Native American. The other story is about a barber who's planning to cut the throat of a dictator. When I ran across this in some papers a few years ago, I kind of wondered if I made it up or if it was some sort of bizarre English exercise. You know, this story is missing the punctuation; copy it and insert the correct punctuation marks. It just doesn't seem appropriate content for middle school. I think the one guy's name was Torres. I don't remember if that was the barber or the dictator. Does this sound familiar to anyone from school in the mid-1970s?

In high school, I was pretty proud of a story I wrote for senior English. We were supposed to write a true story, but I couldn't think of anything interesting, so I wrote some far-fetched science fiction story in the first person, and for anyone who might question its veracity, I ended it with the brilliant, "It could be true, and it could happen to you."

The only scripts I've ever written are short ones, 20 minutes or less. Two were completed for a 24 Hour Theatre project, so they were done under the gun and turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. One was the screenplay for a movie that I got to make as part of a contest run by MTV and Amp'd (a mobile phone company, now defunct). I thought the script turned out well, though it was also written rather quickly; the finished film was cut down to four minutes (the better to play on Amp'd cell phones), and I think it would have been better about a minute longer. Still, I'm proud of the film. The two other screenplays I've written were for short film contests, but due to circumstances beyond my control, they were never filmed.

I've started writing novels and feature-length scripts, but I've never finished any of them. That, however, is a post for another day.

What writing projects that you've done stand out in your mind as something to be proud of?

The Monsters are Due

2011-01-11T00:30:00.007-06:00

Tonight, we watched an episode from the first season of The Twilight Zone. The story is called "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." Filmed circa 1960, it's probably a statement on HUAC and the Red Menace. I read the story in science fiction class in high school, and I first saw the episode years ago, and I thought it was great.

I see it a little differently now.

In the episode, a quiet afternoon on a suburban street turns into a night of hostility and death. Several neighbors witness something -- a meteor, perhaps -- streak by overhead. Soon after, they realize the power has gone out, the radios won't pick up anything, the phones aren't working, the cars won't start. One of the men sets out to see if the next street over is having the same trouble.

A teenager says he knows what happened; he read it in a comic book. The meteor is a spaceship, and the aliens have disrupted power and communications. Two other men were planning to walk into town to find out what the trouble is, and the boy begs them not to go. He says they may not come back. In the comic book, the only people who could leave the area were an alien family that had been planted in the area to earn the neighbors' trust.

Some of the neighbors start to believe the story. When one man's car starts unexpectedly, that's suspicious. Why is your car starting when ours won't? A woman says she's seen the man walking outside early in the morning, looking up at the stars. Why is that? Clearly he's watching for the spaceship bringing the invasion fleet. As the night goes on, accusations keep flying and tempers are burning hotter.

Then a figure appears at the end of the street, walking towards the group. It's dark. Who's coming? It must be the aliens. Someone grabs a gun and shoots. Of course, it's Pete coming back from his foray to the next street over. Even his death doesn't snap people back to using common sense, and as the chaos builds, we zoom out to find a pair of humanoid aliens watching from a hilltop. It's always the same, one says to the other. All we have to do is shut off a few of their machines and wait for them to destroy each other.

Today, I can't really see that happening. I've seen people support each other after 9/11, help each other after hurricanes, share flashlights and radios after the big Northeast Blackout. The only somewhat violent incident I recall after Hurricane Ivan was a couple of out of town deputies tasing a resident who was on the dark and isolated beach trying to defend his home from looters.

The part that left me with chills and convinced me that the story still has a great deal of relevance was Rod Serling's closing narration, which I quote here:

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own - for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

I listened to these words and I thought about the bright, inspired 9-year-old who was shot dead a few days ago because a disturbed man was biased against members of a particular political party.

"Prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy." Rod Serling, you were right. More's the pity.

Please Vote for My Soft Kitty

2011-01-07T01:15:00.000-06:00

Kali and I are trying to win a trip to L.A. in a contest sponsored by CBS and The Big Bang Theory comedy series.

Well, I'm trying to win the trip. Kali is trying to get her parents out of the house so she can make mischief. It's a voting contest, to be decided over several rounds. Round 1 is under way and ends January 13.

You can view the video and vote by clicking this sentence.

It's really easy. Just look for the security confirmation word to the left of the video, type it into the box, and click the Vote button right underneath. I would really appreciate it.

To read more about why the video is not very exciting, visit my other blog CrazyKittyChick.

Best Christmas Gift of 2010

2011-01-06T16:19:00.000-06:00

Now that the holidays are behind us, I find a moment to think about the best gift I received.

For me, it was the time spent with family. Many of my extended family members I only see at the holidays or the occasional wedding or funeral. We just don't get together that often.

Spending the holidays with family members has always been a blessing to me. I grew up a military brat so even our immediate family wasn't always together for Christmas, and the times we came home and went to my grandparents' houses were that much more special.

As I get older, the times together become even more precious, as I have lost grandparents, my dad, my cousin. Christmas brings all of us together, and that's the best part of the season.

Men: Dress Sharp to Get Women

2011-01-05T09:30:00.002-06:00

Photo from MensWearhouse.com

A man who dresses well seems more attractive than he really is. At least, that's the view of 91% of Americans polled. Most women, 83% of them, said that a sharply dressed man is sexier than one with a lot of money.

Of course, this survey was conducted on behalf of Men's Wearhouse, who would certainly benefit if more men wore suits and ties. I can't say that my heart would be broken never to see another man wearing baggy pants that look like they're about to fall off with a grunge-skater-graffiti t-shirt. I'm not alone; 65% of those polled agreed that you can determine a man's maturity level by what he's wearing.

The men's responses show that they're thinking about what they're wearing. A little, at least. The survey found that 72% of men feel underdressed most of the time. About the same number responded that men in general don't dress as well as they did 20 years ago, even though they also saw a good wardrobe as an important part of financial success.

Men's Wearhouse has published the complete survey online, if you'd like to see more results. Before I sign off, one final hint to the guys: 32% of women polled said they have thrown away some of their men's clothing without telling him.

I met a famous filmmaker today.

2011-01-04T01:41:00.001-06:00

I'm jumping the gun just a little. Brett Haley isn't a household name, but judging by the reviews his new feature film is getting, he probably will be very soon.

Trieste Kelly Dunn and Brett Haley

Brett grew up in Pensacola, Florida. He went to college in North Carolina then moved to New York. The year my super short film Payoff was in the Pensacola Bay Area Film Festival, Brett had a short film in as well. His cost a lot more than mine and his was longer (he wasn't cutting his movie for screenings on cell phones). I missed it; I was in New York, thanks to a sweepstakes I'd won. My husband attended, and he says while my film ended up too short, Brett's was a little too long. The other difference is, I haven't made another film, and Brett has.

His newest film is a feature. The New Year. It's been getting rave reviews at prestigious film festivals around the country. The film was actually shot a couple of years ago, here in Pensacola, for a budget of about $8,000. (Hey, my four-minute film cost just a bit more than that! Huh.) Today, I learned that he finished editing in time to submit it for festival season in 2009. Unfortunately, none of the festivals picked it up. Finally, the Sarasota Film Festival screened the movie, and the audience loved it. So much that it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. Suddenly, everyone in the film community sat up and took notice, and he was invited to screen the film at a dozen-plus top festivals. Here's the trailer:

It's a great kick-off for a promising directorial talent.

The New Year is booked for a two-week engagement at the Gulf Breeze Cinema 4 starting Friday, January 7, 2011. In the meantime, you can read an interview with Brett at IndieWIRE and check out the latest news on the film's Facebook page.

Brett and I have something else in common, besides our films screening together at the Pensacola Bay Area Film Festival. We both cast the extremely talented Carol Kahn Parker in our movies. You can see Carol in Payoff at MTV.com, and to learn more about how that movie got made, look for the Unofficial Payoff website link in my sidebar.

New Year - New Blogging Resolution

2011-01-03T00:40:00.000-06:00

I am resolving to post more on my blogs in 2011. I really want to build this into something really useful. I want to expand my product reviews and giveaways, and I hope that I can get the support of businesses. PR Welcome!

You may have noticed that I have a new look and a new title to go with this resolution. The name has changed from Musings to Rhyme Schemes and Daydreams. I chose the Musings name when I first started the blog several years ago. I hadn't been to many blogs at that time, I wasn't sure what I was even going to do with this other than try to create a non-private personal journal. Now, I have visited dozens if not hundreds of blogs and I have a better idea of what I want to do with it. I never really liked Musings; it's kind of dull, actually. I wish I had put more thought into it when I first started because I had a great notion only to find that it was so great, someone else is already using it. C'est la vie.

Rhyme Schemes and Daydreams alludes to my love of writing and my tendency to "imagine the possibilities," aka daydream.

I have two other blogs, and I'm trying to decide if I should pull them all together or continue to maintain them separately.

A few years ago, I started my Hurricane Safety blog with the intent of providing tips to people who might need to prepare for a tropical storm or hurricane. At the time, I was really frustrated that after a couple of really busy and devastating storm seasons, people here on the Gulf Coast, at least in my part of it, seemed to be blasé about preparedness. It also provides a quick reference for me to find supply lists and phone numbers. Of late, I have expanded it to include some other safety information, such as home fire prevention and readiness.

More recently I started Crazy Kitty Chick. My intention was to post cat-related articles, personal stories as well as information found online, reviews of products, ideas for DIY projects, and that sort of thing. I pretty quickly broke my own rule and included some non-cat content. If I maintain that site as a separate blog, and I'm going to do that for now, I will probably move those non-cat posts over to this one.

What do you think? Do you like the new look of this site and what you're reading here? Should I keep all three separate sites or try to merge any or all of them? Are you a blogger? I would love to hear your success stories and whether or not you've ever faced a decision about maintaining multiple sites. I've also been trying to convince my husband to blog about the things he's interested in. I keep giving him ideas. Have you been able to convince someone else to take up the task? Do tell!

Not in the house, Luke!

2011-01-02T20:44:00.000-06:00

This video demonstrates what really happened when Luke Skywalker turned on his father's lightsaber for the first time. Priceless!

Blizzard video - Oscar-worthy?

2011-01-02T16:21:00.001-06:00

On December 26, 2010, New York filmmaker Jamie Stuart spent a few hours documenting the blizzard that hit New England. The next day, he edited together a short film, uploaded it to YouTube, and he emailed the link to a number of people, including Chicago movie critic Roger Ebert.

Ebert loved the film and wrote a column about it. He thinks it's a masterful example of film-making, deserving of an Academy Award for live action short subject. Here it is:

What do you think?

For the most part, the visuals are beautifully shot. I liked some of the editing, but not all of it. I don't mind that it doesn't tell a particular story, but I thought that parts of it, particularly the first half, was cut very choppily. I don't know what the deadline is to submit a short film for consideration by the Academy, but if there's still time, Stuart should certainly go for it. I'm sure he wasn't aiming for an Award when he posted it, but he will certainly get a job offer or two based on all the attention he's getting, and that probably is what he's aiming for every time he uploads a short film to YouTube.

One of the reason's Ebert liked it was that he considered it an homage to Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov's 1929 feature "Man with a Movie Camera." Ebert posted the complete silent film, just over an hour long, on his website. I watched a few minutes of it, and it seems like an interesting experiment and a nice documentation of life in the young Soviet Republic. The film is respected, at least in part, because of the variety of in-camera effects, trick photography, and cinematic techniques developed and/or used by Vertov. Stuart's short really doesn't have a unique style that really stands out.

You can read Ebert's complete article, including a Q&A with Stuart, and watch Vertov's film at Roger Ebert's Journal on the Chicago Sun-Times website.

For myself, I was just as entertained by this timelapse that shows the blizzard's effects in New Jersey. Photographer Michael Black set his camera to take a photo every five minutes for about 20 hours.

Watching this video makes me glad I live in Florida!

12 Days of Christmas and the Weather

2011-01-02T02:25:00.000-06:00

My Grandma Hahn held with the old superstition that the weather during Christmastide predicted the weather for the coming year. For a long time, I mis-remembered the legend as being the weather on the first 12 days of the new year, but it always seemed to make sense. January 7 would be July, and it was usually a little unseasonably warm that day. I think it was last year, maybe year before last, that my mom had said it was the 12 days of Christmas, starting with December 25th that predicted the weather.

I've always had the best intentions to compare the appropriate prediction dates to the actual weather, but I lose my notes or I'd forget to check it once the summer got here, that kind of thing. This year, though, I found that the National Weather Service has some excellent tools -- such as a chart of the average high, low and cumulative rainfall for each month of the year; a chart for each month of the year showing the average high, low and rainfall by day; and a chart that shows the 30-year average for each month (1971 to 2000). So I went back over all of last year's data so I could check the accuracy of the old legend.

The first box shows for each day of Christmastide 2009-2010, the high, low and rainfall amount in Pensacola, Florida. The second box shows the average high, low and rainfall for each month of 2010. You can follow each row straight across to see if the Christmastide weather predicted the actual weather.

As you can see, the temperatures in January, February and March are spot on. One could argue that December 31, being unseasonably warm, predicted the higher temperatures in July. Sort of. I'll be following this for next year, and I'm particularly curious to see if we get snow this February, since we had a few snowflakes fall on the day after Christmas.

I've thought about going back a few years, but it is a little time consuming. One comparison I would like to make is what Grandma recorded in a diary some thirty years ago. My mom has the book, but at the time, I didn't know how to compare it with any actual temperatures for that year. That'll be interesting.

Something else interesting is the comparison of last year's temperatures with the historical averages for a 30-year span from 1971 to 2000. With the exception of April's low, 2010 temperatures were colder than average in winter and warmer than average in the other seasons. While some months of 2010 had drastically more rain than average and others had drastically less, by the end of the year, we were about an inch-and-a-half below average for the year.

At least we didn't have any hurricanes. Knock wood.

Review: Law and Order - Conviction

2010-12-31T16:26:00.000-06:00

Several months, maybe a year ago, we acquired Conviction: The Complete Series on DVD. We watched the first four or five episodes and kind of lost interest. We were not compelled to continue watching, until this week.

The series focuses on a team of young attorneys working for the state prosecutor's office in New York. The boss is ADA Alexandra Cabot, who was a regular character on the original Law and Order series, and L&O creator Dick Wolf also created this series. In the first three Law and Order series. each episode focuses on one case, maybe two. With Conviction, each episode covers three or four cases, so you only see a few minutes of any one storyline. In addition, the first few episodes seemed to focus more on the attorneys' private lives and sexual escapades than on the cases. What Tim and I like about the other Law and Order series is that we can follow along on the investigation and prosecution, discuss various legal procedures, agree or disagree with how a case is handled, and see if we were right about who committed the crime. Conviction didn't give us enough of that.

After several months of not watching, we decided to finish watching the series this week. We weren't sure where we stopped, so we ended up missing a few episodes in the middle and watching those out of order. The show actually got a lot better as it went along. We still had some personal drama, but it didn't seem to detract as much from the cases. They had some interesting cases that we didn't always agree on. Here's an example:

The cast of Conviction.

In one episode a young gang member had disappeared after his arrest for selling drugs. The other gang members involved had all been prosecuted. They finally nab this last guy, but it turns out he has joined the Navy, and his defense attorney asks for leniency. The prosecutor originally assigned to the case has passed it off to Nick Potter, one of the new guys in the office, and she wants the kid to go to prison. Potter wants to give him a break; the kid is due to ship out to Iraq in a few months, and his CO says he's an outstanding sailor. Unfortunately, ADA Cabot agrees with the case's original prosecutor. It's a gang crime and he needs to be punished. The drug conviction is a felony and he'll have to serve a year in prison, meaning his Navy career is over. I agreed with Potter. The drug sale (two ounces of crack cocaine) was not a violent crime. The kid seemed genuinely glad to have found a legitimate career that makes his mother proud. Prisons are overcrowded, and in my mind, service in Iraq is just as good a rehabilitative tool as a year in prison. When he gets out of prison, he'll turn back to his life of crime because he won't have a job and he'll be bitter. My husband says the kid probably committed violent crimes before, even if he didn't get caught, because that's what gangs do, and he should be punished. He also said that he'd probably be one of those service members who turn the gun on his own troops or who'll come home more violent than ever. I can see his point, but from the information I had to go with, I would have given the kid the benefit of the doubt.

If you like the other Law and Order series, you will probably enjoy this one as well. If you don't get into the first couple of episodes, just give it time and allow it to develop. In the beginning, I thought I could see why the show didn't get picked up past the first season. By the end, though, I felt like it had gotten a raw deal, and I was really disappointed not to be able to see what happened to these characters in the future.

You can watch full episodes of Conviction on Hulu. The complete series is also available for purchase at Amazon.

Doctor Who Christmas Special + 2011 Preview

2010-12-29T11:48:00.000-06:00

A dozen years ago, I never thought I would be a fan of Doctor Who. I was never into the show. I watched a few episodes with my husband, who's been a fan since the '80s, but I just didn't get into it.

When the BBC revived the series in 2005, I sat by my husband to watch. We didn't have cable, so here was something new to see, even if it was a show that I didn't give a hoot about. If you're wondering how we were watching without cable, a friend of Tim's was sending him DVDs of the episodes that he downloaded. Never fear, we purchase all the legal DVDs when they are released; we just don't want to wait a year to see the show.

After watching a few episodes, in particular the two-part story of "The Empty Child and "The Doctor Dances," I was pretty well hooked. When Christopher Eccleston regenerated into David Tennant, that's when I really started considering myself a fan. I still hate to say the words, but I'll type them here: I love Doctor Who.

The new Who anyway. I'm still not inclined to sit and watch Doctors 1-7. No offense to William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy - I'm just not that into you.

It's somewhat of a tradition for the BBC to air a Doctor Who story on Christmas Day, and even though BBC America aired the Special on the 25th, we still don't have cable. So, Christmas Day found us searching for someplace online to watch Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol. No luck. We did find it the next day, and I have mixed feelings about it. It was a good story, with great use of the potential of time travel.

In the story, a space cruise ship is about to crash on a distant planet colonized by Earth in the far future. A crotchety old man controls the device that keeps the planet's frozen skies clear. At the point our story begins, the skies are not clear, and that's why the ship is about to crash. The old man refuses to use his device to clear the way and save the 4,000+ passengers and crew. It's up to the Doctor (#11, Matt Smith) to change his mind.

The Doctor has a personal stake in all this; his current companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams are on their honeymoon aboard that very ship. One of the story's shortcomings, I think, was that we never really felt any tension that the ship was actually going to crash. I didn't quite understand why the ship couldn't change course, why or how they got caught in the atmosphere(did they not request clearance to land?), and so I wasn't quite buying all that. The scenes on the bridge didn't always ring true. Amy and Rory send the Doctor a distress signal, which shows up on the ship's instruments. But it's not really a proper distress signal, I wouldn't think. They use a huge old-fashioned looking mobile phone device to talk to the Doctor at one point, but any mobile phone will work to call the TARDIS anymore. Well, at least mobiles that the Doctor has zapped with his Sonic Screwdriver. Near the beginning, in response to the distress signal ostensibly, the Doctor puts a message up on the ship's screen that says, "Come along, Pond," but how can they come along? The ship is completely out of control. That's why I never felt any sense of urgency, I think.

The story on the planet is more compelling. When the Doctor shows up (down the chimney on Christmas Eve), the crotchety old man, Kazran Sardik (the great British actor Michael Gambon) is Scroogely refusing a Christmas wish for a poor family. The Doctor tells Sardik what's happening, then locates the sky controller device and tries to operate it himself. It's isomorphic, though, and will only work for Sardik. The Doctor notices a few details that make him realize that Sardik's attitude began in childhood, so he goes back in time to make Sardik a better person. Through the magic of the TARDIS, old Sardik watches it all play out in front of him, and we see him reacting to what's happening and to his changes in memory.

The Doctor seems to be succeeding, then something happens that turns Sardik bitter again. Finally, he has one last chance to save the ship, but it threatens the life of Abigail, the young woman Sardik fell in love with during the Doctor's visits.

Overall, I thought it was a well-done take on the Dickens' classic.

**VERY BIG SPOILER ALERT**

The episode shows us a countdown to Abigail's last day, but doesn't explain what the countdown means until near the end. Her family, the ones who were begging to see her for Christmas at the start of the episode, seems to think she's only cryogenically preserved because she's the collateral on a loan. Do they not know the truth? What's wrong with her that she seems perfectly healthy every time we see her? Why doesn't the Doctor check in all of time and space and bring her a cure? It's all very vague and it makes the ending unsatisfying for me.

**END OF SPOILERS**

Now, we wait.

The next few episodes, the first half of the 2011 Season, are supposed to air in the Spring. Here's a preview:

Two Romance Trilogy Winners

2010-12-19T00:05:00.000-06:00

My latest two giveaways have ended and the winners have been emailed.

Merry Widows Trilogy Giveaway: Randomizer picked post number 2, which was Shala_Darkstone's Twitter entry.

Ladies' Fashionable Cabinet Romance Trilogy Giveaway: Randomizer picked post number 7, which was Erin G.'s single entry.

Thank you to everyone who entered. I appreciate your reading my blog, and I am happy to know these books are going to good new homes. Come back soon for a new giveaway!

Merry Widows Romance Giveaway

2010-12-05T21:29:00.001-06:00

In Regency England, the most independent women of the ton are members of the Benevolent Widows Society. Having lost their husbands, they've gained control over their fortunes and their lives. They have no intention of marrying again, but they don't want to give up the pleasures of the marriage bed. They vow to take lovers and to share their experiences with the other widows.

The first book in Candice Hern's Merry Widows series is In the Thrill of the Night. Marianne Nesbitt loved her late husband, and before listening to the other Society members' talk, she'd never considered taking a lover. Once her mind is made up, she asks her husband's best friend, Adam Cazenove to help her find the right man with whom to begin her affair.

When Beatrice, Lady Somerfield, enjoys a passionate interlude at a masquerade ball, it's Just One of Those Flings. Gabriel, Marquess of Thayne, is the catch of the season, and dozens of debutantes are vying for his hand. When he catches the eye of her niece, Beatrice intends to end the affair, but Gabriel has other ideas.

In Lady Be Bad, John Grayston, Viscount Rochdale, begins a seduction of bishop's widow Grace Marlowe with a dark purpose. He's been challenged to prove he can entice any woman in London into his bed, and his most prized possession is at stake. Grace's intelligence and her passion win his heart, but he soon discovers he may not be the only one playing games of seduction.

Candice Hern writes beautifully, weaving intricate plots that really keep you wondering how the hero and heroine will ever overcome the obstacles they face. You can learn more about Candice and her books at CandiceHern.com.

I really enjoyed reading these books, but I am running out of space on the bookshelf, so I am giving them away. One winner will receive all three novels in the trilogy. I purchased the books used and have read them once. They are in good condition, although the spines are creased.

FIRST ENTRY: Follow this blog on Google Friend Connect AND comment here on which period of English history most fascinates you. If your email is not visible on your GFC profile, please leave it in your comment.

EXTRA ENTRIES: For each item you complete, leave another comment here and be sure to include a link to your comments and tweets.

*leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post on Musings (1)
*visit my Crazy Kitty Chick blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*visit my Hurricane Safety blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*follow Auriette on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)
*follow CrazyKittyChick on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)

You can earn a maximum of six entries per household. Eligible comments must be made no later than 11:59pm ET on December 18, 2010. Entrants must be 18 or older, with shipping addresses in the United States or military APO/FPO addresses. One winner will be selected by random drawing on December 19 and notified by email. Winner must respond to this email with mailing address within 72 hours or another winner will be selected. Books will be sent media mail.

Romance Trilogy Giveaway

2010-12-05T19:51:00.001-06:00

The Ladies' Fashionable Cabinet isn't a piece of furniture. It's a magazine, one that differs from other publications for women living in Regency England in that it encourages thoughtfulness and an independent spirit in its readers. The Cabinet also forms the backdrop for a trilogy of romances written by Candice Hern, an avid reader and researcher who imbues her work with fascinating details.

In Once a Dreamer, one of the Cabinet's young readers takes the advice in the Busybody's advice column to heart and runs away with a handsome young suitor. Her aunt Eleanor learns the secret identity of the Busybody and enlists his aid. As Simon and Eleanor pursue her niece, they end up finding much more than the wayward couple.

The second book, Once a Scoundrel, finds the Cabinet in the hands of new owner Anthony Morehouse. Anthony is an old friend and rival of editor Edwina Parrish, and the two enter into a wager that will decide the future of both the publication and their relationship. Adding to the challenge, Edwina is hiding a secret that could ruin them all.

Edwina's brother Nicholas helps run the magazine out of their home, but he pays little attention to the mousy assistant editor Prudence Armitage. That changes in Once a Gentleman. When Pru falls asleep at the office, her titled father demands that Nicholas marry her. Pru is already in love with Nick, and she'll do anything to turn this marriage of convenience into a love match.

Candice is a wonderful writer, who places very realistic obstacles in the path of true love. Her descriptive writing is no doubt influenced by her study of art history, her love of novels written in the Regency years, and by her personal collections of historic artifacts. Learn more about Candice, her books and collections at CandiceHern.com.

I am giving away all three novels in the trilogy. I purchased the books used and have read them once. They're in good condition, though the spines are creased.

FIRST ENTRY: Follow this blog on Google Friend Connect AND comment here on which period of English history most fascinates you. If your email is not visible on your GFC profile, please leave it in your comment.

EXTRA ENTRIES: For each item you complete, leave another comment here and be sure to include a link to your comments and tweets.

*leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post on Musings (1)
*visit my Crazy Kitty Chick blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*visit my Hurricane Safety blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*follow Auriette on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)
*follow CrazyKittyChick on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)

You can earn a maximum of six entries per household. Eligible comments must be made no later than 11:59pm ET on December 18, 2010. Entrants must be 18 or older, with shipping addresses in the United States or military APO/FPO addresses. One winner will be selected by random drawing on December 19 and notified by email. Winner must respond to this email with mailing address within 72 hours or another winner will be selected. Books will be sent media mail.

Talking about Death and Dying

2010-12-02T22:54:00.000-06:00

I’m always surprised when people don’t talk about what they want done after they’re gone. My mother’s parents were in their 60s when I was little, and I remember them talking about which child or grandchild would get certain of their possessions; they put masking tape on the bottoms of things with names written on them. When they passed, my mom and uncles knew who Mam-ma and Pap-pa wanted to do the service, what music and verses should be performed, and they’d owned their funeral plots for years, decades maybe.

When my dad died of cancer, he and my mom had already picked out coffins and pre-paid for the funeral home, and we all worked together on the obituary (with me sobbing, but it had to be done).

In contrast, an acquaintance of mine lost her mother, and a few weeks later, she took half a day off work to go with the rest of the family to pick out a headstone. It seemed inconceivable to me that someone who was seriously ill for a long time hadn’t picked out her own headstone. Maybe she didn’t want to face her own death, or her husband didn’t think it was fitting to talk about; I don’t know.

Recently my cousin’s common law wife passed away suddenly. That’s a little different. You don’t expect to die when you’re in your 20s. A couple of weeks later, an old friend of the family, who had been ailing for years, passed, and I commented to my mom about the way his life story was written for the funeral program and how generic his service seemed. And then I said that she and I need to sit down and write her obituary now.

It’s not an easy thing to think about, and even though my mom is in good health, I know I’ll sob my way through typing out what she wants to say. On the other hand, it would be much more difficult to think of what to say about her long and varied life, to know what she would want included, without her there to guide me. Because our family has always talked about death, accepted it as inevitable, and discussed it when the subject came up, we are able to plan for that unavoidable eventuality, in a way a lot of people cannot or will not.

For that, I am grateful.

Gift Idea - Jingle Bell Rocks!

2010-11-28T16:54:00.000-06:00

Jingle Bell Rocks are a quick and inexpensive gift for co-workers, teachers, and family members who like novelty items.

First, you need some flat stones, maybe silver dollar sized. Not too small and really you could go as large as you like. Maybe you have these in your driveway or garden, pick up some by a nearby river, or buy them at a craft store. They're often used in floral displays so they're readily available and not very expensive.

Next you'll need some jingle bells. I used small ones for my Jingle Bell Rocks. Choose bells based on the size of your stones as well as how much you want to spend. You can get more small bells for the same amount of money.

The only other thing you need is hot glue or Epoxy. Make sure the rocks are clean if you picked them up outside. Glue one bell on each rock. There you have it - the Jingle Bell Rock.

When we had a craft store about 15 years ago, I sold these at Christmastime for a dollar or two each. I don't remember exactly how much. People would look at it oddly for a minute, then they would see the sign or I'd say, "It's a Jingle Bell Rock." Once they got it, they'd laugh and a lot of times they would buy one or two or half a dozen of them.

Expect to sing or hum the old song to yourself while you're making these!

DVD Review: Taken

2010-11-28T16:27:00.002-06:00

I've been wanting to see Taken starring Liam Neeson ever since it came out. It looked like the kind of story I would enjoy. On Black Friday, Wal-mart had the DVD for $5, so I bought it, and Tim and I watched it on Saturday. The DVD has two versions, and we chose to watch the theatrical release version.

This movie reminded me of the movies I enjoyed when I was in my 20s, back in the 1980s. Yeah, I'm getting old. The plot is simple. Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired intelligence agent who is trying to spend more time with his 17-year-old daughter Kim. No matter what he does, his ex-wife and her rich new husband seem to overshadow him. When Kim asks for his permission to go to France for the summer with her 19-year-old friend Amanda, Bryan is concerned. He knows how dangerous the world is, especially for two girls traveling alone. Kim gets angry and upset, and the ex-wife is mad, so he gives in, but he buys Kim an international cell phone and asks her to call him at every step of the way.

When Kim and Amanda arrive in France, Kim realizes that Amanda wasn't entirely honest with her, and she's starting to get a little worried. She forgot to call her dad when the plane landed, and he calls her, and she starts to tell him her concerns when several men break into the apartment and grab Amanda. Bryan gives her some instructions, and she is able to get him a little bit of information about the men before they abduct her, too. One of the kidnappers picks up the phone and Bryan warns him that he will come after them if they don't let his daughter go. The man says, "Good luck," and then smashes the phone.

From that point on, Bryan has one goal, and that's to find and save his daughter. He uses his old contacts in the U.S. and Paris, as well as the skills he gained in years of covert work for the government. He is warned that he'll have 96 hours, at most, to locate his daughter before she disappears forever, and that countdown clock is in his mind all the time.

One thing I really liked about this movie is that Bryan doesn't pull punches. These are bad guys he's after, and he doesn't hesitate to fight, torture or kill them to get the information he needs. All the time, we're wondering if he will be able to get to Kim in time.

It's not a long film, just under an hour and a half. The ending seemed a bit abrupt; maybe it's because I'm used to all the "twist endings" and fake-out endings that are common nowadays. I wonder if they could have taken another 10-15 minutes to develop the characters of Kim and Bryan a little more, but then again, I'm not sure it needed it.

If you like action movies, especially movies like Die Hard and other movies from the '80s, I think you'll enjoy this one.

"Gentlemen Rogues" Trilogy Winner!

2010-11-27T23:37:00.000-06:00

Thank you to everyone who entered. Congratulations to LKnott, who'll be receiving all three books in the Gentlemen Rogues trilogy.

I should mention that there were six posts, and here's why I only randomized from 1-5. The mandatory first entry is two parts: follow my blog AND leave a comment about why you like historical romances, but Ms. Knott (or Mr. Knott) left two posts, one for each part, so I didn't count the second one (comment #6). Someone did the same thing in the Star Wars giveaway, but there were more entries before and after, so I removed that comment before assigning the numbers.

I'm sorry if the explanation isn't clear enough, and I'll be thinking of a new way to phrase it that might help everyone to understand.

I will be emailing LKnott to get the shipping information.

Keep watching this blog for more chances to win!

What did you score on Black Friday?

2010-11-26T20:09:00.000-06:00

At 12:33am on Black Friday, I finished going through my emails, entering the sweeps that were about to expire, and making out my shopping list, and I decided that with two hours to go until I needed to get up, I might as well not sleep at all. So, I went to:

When I walked in the store, I was quite pleased to see a tasting booth offering bottles of 5 Hour Energy in pomegranate flavor. I gulped down half the bottle right off the bat. Ewww. Artificial sweetener aftertaste! I saved the rest for later.

I picked up a few DVDs for $1.96 and one (Taken with Liam Neeson) for $5. I bought two electric blankets on sale for $19, because my mom mentioned that she wanted to buy a couple. I also stocked up on water and cat litter for the week.

I was home by 2:00am, drank the rest of the 5 Hour Energy, and bounced off the walls until 2:45am, when I called my mom to make sure she was up. Then I bounced off the walls some more. I put my diet pill in my purse so I could take it later, ate a Lärabar, and cleaned up Trickster yak until she arrived just after 3:30am.

First stop: Target. I had hoped to pick up some of the Chefmate Sandwich Makers for Christmas gifts, but all they had left in the assortment were Hand Mixers, so I loaded up on those. Mom wanted to look at a couple of larger appliances, but it was too crazy, so we checked out. While waiting in line, I noticed a pair of Star Wars gloves on an outwear display, so I'll be getting those for Christmas.

Then we headed over to University Mall, where Mom and I picked up a few things for Tim, and I bought a sweater and two fleece pullovers for myself.

It was time for Best Buy to open and I wanted to get The Tudors: Season 3 for $14.99. The line was wrapped around the building, and while it was moving right along, Mom suggested we head across the street to Kmart. We couldn't find the $5.99 shirts we were looking for, so I found an employee who looked all around, scanned a few things, and decided that the $8.99 shirts were supposed to be marked $5.99. She made a note on the tag and gave us her name so we could check out. I grabbed a two-gallon wet-dry vac. Mom offered to get me the two Star Wars LEGO clocks that were $19.99 each. It seemed a bit steep for what it was (I'm not all that into LEGO, even Star Wars LEGO, because they're so expensive and kind of funny looking), so I said she could get me the $19.99 vacuum instead, and she was cool with that.

Oh, look. The sun is coming up!

Back over to Best Buy, where the line was gone outside the building because everyone had lined up inside the store to check out. Mom was waiting in the car, and I debated stashing my "Tudors" DVD behind something that was not on sale, but the line wasn't all that long.

20 minutes later: Oh, I see, you have two lines that start on opposite sides of the store and now we're moving side by side.

20 minutes after that: Ah, now we're being merged into one line. "One from line A. Now one from line B. Line A. Line B."

::sigh::

By the time I got back out to the car (I think I was in line about an hour), I was starving. Mom gave me a cookie and suggested we head over to Wal-mart to have a deli corn dog for lunch. At 9:00am. Also she wanted to get more electric blankets.

Then she brought up printers, which we had talked about Thursday night, so we decided to go to Office Depot, which is basically in the Cordova Mall parking lot. They didn't have the HP Color Laser Printer that was on clearance for $149.99 and the associate said he was not allowed to call another store. Really. That's very strange. But he was able to give me the number of the Fairfield store, and I called over there, and they had two of them, but they weren't able to put Black Friday specials on hold, necessitating a mad dash across town.

It took them a few minutes to actually find the printers, but they did, and Mom bought one for herself and one for me for Christmas, plus the three year extended warranty on both. I'm excited; we haven't had a working printer at home in a while.

Lowe's was right next door and Mom bought poinsettias to go on Daddy's grave and a bunch of stuff for family Christmas gifts. I got a couple of things for Tim and a couple of different things for family gifts. Our get-together for my dad's side of the family is at the beginning of December, so I needed just a few more things to make sure everyone was covered.

After that we went to Wal-mart. We were planning to go to a different store than the one I'd been to nine hours earlier, but that's the one that was closest. On the way in, we ran into an old friend and colleague from Channel 3, collecting for Communities Caring and Christmas, and Mom made a donation. Once inside, she bought another electric blanket and a heated throw. She's giving her old electric blanket to the cats and she'll use the new one. I bought some "bandage strips" because I have been tearing up my fingers lately, nervous habit. And we got corn dogs and soda, which we ate in the car. Mom's car. Not Tim's and my car, in which no one is allowed to eat.

At that point, Mom was really starting to slow down, but she wanted to go to the new Big Lots, and I wanted to check out the DVDs there, plus I wanted to go to Anna's Linens in the same plaza, and to Petsmart, in the next plaza over. I didn't find any DVDs, but Mom found a Perry Mason set that she wanted and a couple of other things. I spotted a Star Wars calendar for $7. At Anna's, I bought some fleece throws, which completed my shopping for the big family shindig. Over at Petsmart, Mom bought Purina Cat Chow on sale for $9.99, and I got nothing, because Iams isn't making cat food right now, apparently.

Then I dropped off Mom at her house, went to lunch with Tim, went by a different Big Lots near my house, where I found a few different DVDs, and then I came home. I took my purse inside and started to go back out to unload the car.

Oh, look. it's raining. I got an umbrella and ran to the mailbox, then settled into the house for a little while. I wrote out the bill that arrived today, and during breaks in the showers, I managed to unload everything that was coming home with me today and change the litterboxes. Then I went by Office Depot for the things I forgot ($5.99 spindle of DVDs for making restore disks for our computer and my mom's, and some video editing software that's free after rebate) and headed over to mom's house, where I unloaded her haul, changed her litter boxes (well, her cats' litter boxes), backed up her files, and created the restore disk.

By the time Tim arrived, I was starting to drag. We stopped by the vet (about two blocks from Mom's house) and bought some dry cat food there, then came home and took the bag off the chimney so we could light the furnace, because crimeny, the temperature was dropping fast. I moved my tomato plants under the back porch and we tacked up some old shower curtains around to help block the wind. It's so strange that they didn't do anything all summer, and suddenly in the fall, they got huge and are making tomatoes hand over fist, even as their leaves are all dying off from the cooler weather.

So, now I need to go enter the rest of the sweeps that are expiring at midnight tonight, finish looking through my emails and hit the sack for some much-needed sleep.

Happy Holidays!

Caridad Pineiro Banner

2010-11-22T22:50:00.000-06:00

Best-selling author Caridad Pineiro is giving away some great prizes at caridad.com. Visit her site and click on "Contest" for details.

Historical Romance Giveaway

2010-11-21T11:43:00.002-06:00

Three self-made lords are looking for love in Linda Needham's "Gentlemen Rogues" series, centering on a trio of men bound together as children and as close as any blood brothers.

In the first book The Pleasure of Her Kiss, Jared, Earl of Hawkesly, is returning home for the first time since he married Kathryn in a whirlwind ceremony right after her father's passing. He finds that she hasn't been waiting patiently all those months; she's been very busy. His hunting lodge has been turned into a hotel, his home stripped of valuable paintings, and just who are all the children his wife is mothering? He soon discovers that he'll have to work hard and risk everything else he's won in life, if he's to keep his spirited bride.

A Scandal to Remember finds Andrew Chase, Earl of Wexford, struggling to protect a willful princess in the days before her coronation. Princess Caroline is fiercely proud of her country, but it hasn't really existed since she was born. Her parents were killed in a revolution, the country divided, and its treasures cast to the four winds. Now that she is of age, Boratania's borders are being re-established and she is to be crowned queen - if she isn't assassinated first. Andrew learns that Caro is keeping secrets, but even she doesn't know the scandalous truth about her family tree.

Ross, Earl of Blakestone, is investigating the disappearances of several high-born ladies in Marry the Man Today. His inquiries lead him to intelligent, outspoken Elizabeth Dunaway, whose political activism has earned her many enemies. Ross admires her independent attitude and her beauty, but he knows that she is harboring dangerous secrets and seditious materials. Elizabeth finds Ross attractive, but she fears his constant surveillance will uncover the secret of her most important work. When her choice is prison or marriage to the Earl, she reluctantly says, "I do."

WIN THE TRILOGY *****We have a winner!*****

I purchased these books used and have read them once. The spines are not broken, but they are creased. Corners and edges are very lightly worn. One winner will receive all three books in the "Gentlemen Rogues" Trilogy.

FIRST ENTRY: Follow this blog on Google Friend Connect and comment here on what you like most about historical romances. If your email is not visible on your GFC profile, please leave it in your comment.

EXTRA ENTRIES: For each item you complete, leave another comment here and be sure to include a link to your comments and tweets.

*leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post on Musings (1)
*visit my Crazy Kitty Chick blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*visit my Hurricane Safety blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*follow Auriette on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)
*follow CrazyKittyChick on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)

You can earn a maximum of six entries per household. Eligible comments must be made no later than 11:59pm ET on November 27, 2010. Entrants must be 18 or older, with shipping addresses in the United States or military APO/FPO addresses. One winner will be selected by random drawing on November 28 and notified by email. Books will be sent media mail.

A Love of Reading

2010-11-21T11:08:00.001-06:00

I love to read. My mom read storybooks to me, I think starting before I was born, and I have always enjoyed books and reading. I don't have time for reading as much as I'd like, actually, but I try to get in a few pages most days. I can't usually afford to buy as many books as I'd like to read, and I don't get to the library very often.

A couple of years ago, I hit the jackpot. We stopped at a yard sale that a local bank was having to raise money for Relay for Life. My dad, both his parents, and at least three out of four of his grandparents all died of cancer, so I am happy to support the American Cancer Society. At this sale, it was easy, because one of the ladies had brought a huge number of romance novels. I had read some of the authors before, but many of them I only knew from visiting their websites and receiving their newsletters. The books were 3/$1, the woman had complete sets of a bunch of series, and I loaded up.

I'm only about halfway through the bag, and I'm finding I don't have any bookshelf space left. Not only that, but because I don't have as much time for reading, I guess, I don't re-read books the way I did when I was a kid. So, I've decided to give them away, starting today. Keep watching my blog for details.

Star Wars Giveaway Winner

2010-11-19T23:12:00.001-06:00

Congratulations, Sher! The Randomizer picked comment #33 as the winner, so I counted up and I counted down, and I came up with your entry both times. I guess maybe it's a good thing I didn't have hundreds of entries to count up and down.

I'm deciding what my next giveaway will be and I'll post it this weekend. I'll have another Star Wars giveaway in the future, but the next one will probably be books.

Sher, I'll be sending you an email to get your shipping information.

Thanks again to everyone who entered!

$3 or Less Holiday Gift Ideas

2010-11-15T20:42:00.000-06:00

I don't know how things are at your house, but we have an extended family get-together about three weeks before Christmas. It's all my dad's brothers and his sister and their wives, children and, in some cases, grandchildren. Well, not necessarily everyone will be there. All of Dad's siblings came the year before he died. They knew it might be their last chance to see him in any kind of decent condition, and he was already pretty weak.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. I wanted to talk about gift-buying for uncles and aunts and cousins. I don't buy for the youngest generation; I don't have kids and no one is going to bring presents for my cats, so I leave that for Santa and the grandparents. I do like to take something inexpensive for my aunts & uncles and my cousins.

One of the most successful gifts, which I gave to my uncles, male cousins, and the couple of men at the office, was a pocket-sized LED flashlight. I bought a package of 8 or 10 at Home Depot on Black Friday and they cost about $2 each (batteries included). It's a great size to keep in the glove compartment or jacket pocket. This year, Beall's will have Emerson 9-LED Flashlights for $2.50 each. Lowe's is advertising an 8-piece LED flashlight set with different sized flashlights for $6.97; some are those 1 LED keyrings.

A couple of years ago, on the day after Christmas, I picked up some little spa gift sets for half price, and I haven't dug them out of the closet yet, but I think it could work for men or women. Who they go to will depend on what else I find this year. I have at least 33 relatives and spouses, although I haven't confirmed who all's coming. One family lives in the midwest. Some just may not come. I have three male cousins that I don't know if they're married or involved with anyone. I still have to figure out exactly how many gifts I need.

Sears has some fleece throws for $2.99. I always find those handy, but then we don't have central heat, so in the winter, we're always pulling a few extra blankets around us on the couch.

Wal-mart will have assorted DVDs for $1.96, and a movie could be wrapped with a package of microwave popcorn for a movie night gift. I couldn't really make out all the titles in the ad scan, and the assortments aren't always exactly as pictured, either.

The thing is, figuring I need to buy for probably minimum 25 people, anything more than $3 each is out of range.

What bargain gift ideas do you have? Was some inexpensive gift that you've given in the past really well received? Have you noticed any good deals being advertised on the Black Friday sites? Do tell!

Hallelujah! I'm back online!

2010-11-15T19:47:00.000-06:00

The alleged virus wasn't really an issue, as far as we can tell. It seems to be completely unrelated that the six-year-old modem just picked that particular moment to die. Once we got the new modem, it should have worked, but it didn't. Turns out that Cox had to fix some setting at the head office in Atlanta, but the first two tech support people I got just wanted to send someone out to our house, which wouldn't have helped.

I tweeted about it (while using the neighbor's wi-fi), and Cox's support team tweeted me back this morning. We also had a message on the answering machine this morning verifying that the problem was resolved, and sure enough, we were able to sign on. Yay!

Internet Withdrawal

2010-11-13T23:11:00.000-06:00

I'm having serious internet withdrawal.

Yes, I am on the internet at this particular moment. I'm "borrowing" my neighbor's wifi. I don't know which neighbor or, depending on who it is, I might ask their permission.

I took a few minutes at work to check email during the week, but it was busy, so I didn't have much time.

The trouble started when I installed a perfectly legal download of Adobe Creative Suite. I downloaded all the files, started the installation, and went to bed. When we got up in the morning, my husband looked at the computer and said that one of the installs didn't complete correctly. He shut down the computer and we left. That evening, we still couldn't connect to the internet. All the lights on the modem were on, and one of them was amber. I called Cox, and the guy said our modem was six years old and probably dead.

Next day, we went and got a modem, but unfortunately, we bought one that didn't have input for coax cable. However, my husband started running virus scans and Avast found something. Nothing else found it. That started him freaking out, but after he cleaned the computer, the modem worked again. After a little while, though, all the lights came on and it no longer worked.

I made another call to Cox, and the person could not tell me if modems go in and out like that when they're dying. He did tell me he was surprised that our six-year-old modem still worked at all. He said that it's like dog years, and a six-year-old modem is like an 80-year-old person. Apologies to any octogenarians, I'm sure.

This afternoon, we bought another modem, a Motorola with a coax input. I called Cox and gave them all the model information, then I hooked it up. All the lights came on properly, the PC light flickered, just like normal. No internet, though. I ran the set-up CD that came with it. It said I didn't have enough RAM (it only recognized 32MB when I have 6GB), it wouldn't install the USB drivers, it seems to be trying to connect as dial-up half the time. The computer still can't connect to the internet, though. When I hook it up through our wireless router, all its lights come on, but I can't even connect using my laptop. Perhaps it's something simple, but I've been on with Cox twice and Motorola once since I plugged everything in, and nothing is working. I've tried everything I know to try, and I can't make it work.

The Motorola guy had me run a test and said that the Cox signal was too weak, so my last call to Cox was to give in and schedule a technician to come out. Of course, no one can come until Monday, and they only have four hour windows, like 7-10am or 4-7pm. We both work, we just had a week of vacation at the beginning of the month, Tim had Thursday off as the holiday, and I had an FPRA board meeting and a doctor's appointment last week, and an FPRA general chapter meeting this coming week, and I have a lot to do. So, it's just not feasible for us to leave work early or come in late waiting around on a technician. Especially because if the signal is weak, that's not our fault. I even double checked to see if I saw any little tooth marks from the cats. I know they chewed my laptop power cord and I don't know what else, but the cable is not as accessible and I saw no evidence that it had been chewed. The fitting on the end seems secure.

It's either something very simple, or it's their signal, or it's a combination. Anyway, the guy said that I would have to call again later in the week, because he can't schedule anything that far in advance.

Of course, this would have to happen right in the middle of my very first online giveaway! At least I've been able to get on and approve the comments as they've been coming in. I'm very grateful that I'm getting some entries. Please be patient with me if they're not approved as quickly as you might expect.

Star Wars giveaway from Musings

2010-11-06T22:30:00.000-05:00

In honor of my recent visit to the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit, I've decided to host my first giveaway on this blog.

**ENTRY PERIOD IS NOW OVER**Thanks for visiting**

The prize, from my personal collection, is a fairly rare 2-pack of 3.75" action figures. Luke in Stormtrooper Armor and Darth Vader with Removable Dome were originally manufactured for inclusion with Hasbro's Escape the Death Star Game. Later, the figures and a few random blasters and lightsabers were packaged together in a blister pack. I never saw it in stores. Now you can win a set of your own!

FIRST ENTRY: Follow this blog on Google Friend Connect and comment here on what you like most about Star Wars. If your email is not visible on your GFC profile, please leave it in your comment.

EXTRA ENTRIES: For each item you complete, leave another comment here and be sure to include a link to your comments and tweets.

*leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post on Musings (1)
*visit my Crazy Kitty Chick blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*visit my Hurricane Safety blog and leave a relevant comment on any non-giveaway post (1)
*follow Auriette on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)
*follow CrazyKittyChick on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (1)

You can earn a maximum of six entries per household. Eligible comments must be made no later than 11:59pm ET on November 19, 2010. Entrants must be 18 or older, with shipping addresses in the United States or military APO/FPO addresses. One winner will be selected by random drawing on November 20 and notified by email.

Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination

2010-11-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

This week, I took a little jaunt over to the Lafayette Science Museum to visit the traveling exhibit "Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination." The exhibit offers lessons about space, prosthetics, robotics, and exploration. They also have a lot of really cool movie props, costumes and models on display.

Have you ever driven a hovercraft? I tried, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. What I learned from my short and dizzying effort was that when you're steering a vehicle that's floating on a thin cushion of air, your movements need to be subtle. I tried to turn a little bit to the right and ended up spinning in circles. That's just one of the interactive games and activities that relate real-world science to the technologies in Star Wars. The hovercraft is compared to vehicle technologies like the landspeeder and podracer.

My main interest in seeing the exhibit was to get a close-up look at the movie miniatures, costumes and props on display. I've been lucky enough to attend similar exhibits in the past, and each one always offers chances to get close to something I've never seen in person before. This time, I was excited to find the Alliance medical droids FX-7 and 2-1B from The Empire Strikes Back. Other droids on display included R2-D2 and C-3PO, the interrogator droid from A New Hope, and from The Phantom Menace, a battle droid, Droideka, and pit droid.

Models on display included a TIE fighter, large and small Millennium Falcons, an X-Wing, Y-Wing, the Tantive IV blockade runner, and an AT-TE Trade Federation Tank. Several Jedi costumes were on display, along with clothing worn by Han Solo, a Snowtrooper, Stormtrooper, Princess Leia, and little Anakin Skywalker. One cabinet was filled with blasters and lightsabers, and a Hoth display featured macrobinoculars and scanner, a Tauntaun maquette, and a full-sized Wampa costume. This list is only a fraction of the items on display.

I took about a thousand photos (literally) while my mom, who rode over with me, watched the videos and listened to the audio recordings about each exhibit. Sometimes she'd come to me and say, "The recording only talked about these things, and didn't say anything about these other things in the showcase." So, I'd explain to her what everything was. She's never seen the prequels, so for example, she didn't recognize the female Tusken Raider costume in the Tatooine part of the exhibit. With the original trilogy, she did better. When we got to the weapons case, she pointed at the large quote printed inside and said, "That sounds like Han Solo." It said, "Ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side." Yep, that's exactly right, mom.

They have two theatre experiences. The Robot Object Theater is a 15-minute long show that's included with regular museum admission ($10/adult, $8/senior, $6/child). The set is similar to the interior of the Jawa Sandcrawler, and it's mostly a conversation between C-3PO and robotics expert Cynthia Breazeal (who appears on a large monitor). It's a cute show that showcases the work that robots do here on earth and the challenges faced by robot designers. It ties in with several interactive exhibits on robotics.

The other show is the Millennium Falcon Experience. For this you have to buy an extra ticket, but it's only $2 and well worth it. You walk through the hallway of the Falcon, sit in the cockpit and take a ride through the known universe. The wrap-around space images simulate flight motion, so it's really like you're riding in the Falcon's cockpit. At the time I rode, I was the only one, so I got to sit in the pilot's chair. The voyage is narrated by Anthony Daniels (as himself, though he has a conversation with R2, which is kind of weird).

The exhibit will be in Lafayette, Louisiana, through January 17. Visit the website for complete details on museum hours, ticket prices, and restrictions.

Marie Claire: Faux Pas or Cunning Plan?

2010-10-28T00:36:00.000-05:00

I have not read the offending article - I'm sure you know the one I mean - and I'm not inclined to give the Marie Claire site any more traffic than it's probably already getting because of this article.

The editor, and possibly the publisher, approved the magazine going out with that article in it; in my opinion, they are more at fault than the writer, because anyone can write anything they want and put it on their personal blog or some other website, but to pay this woman and give her a national forum for her ridiculous ideas is unconscionable.

I'm sure if you did a word-replacement for the article, substituting the word fat with black, Asian, Mexican or gay, the editorial staff of Marie Claire would have tossed it in the trash instead of printing it. If it were published, any number of anti-defamation lawsuits would have been filed in court already.

I don't know if the editor read it as satire or thought it would be funny. Maybe the staff is so out of touch with the real world that they couldn't see how hurtful it would be to people with a weight problem. Or perhaps they published it knowing that it would create a huge backlash and generate a lot of interest in the magazine -- even if it is the wrong kind of interest. You know the old saying, "Any publicity is good publicity." It will be interesting to see where the magazine is in a year -- still in print or out of business.

If the article can do one good thing, it is to bring a larger audience to the TV series Mike & Molly. I have not seen the show yet, although I have the best intentions to look for it on CBS.com. You see, I used to work with this girl named Emily Mixon, and her sister Katy is one of the regulars on the show. Katy (and Emily) are trim and attractive people, and even if they weren't, Emily is very sweet and their mom Donna is nice, and I haven't met Katy, but I'm sure she's nice, too, and their whole family is incredibly talented. So if this nasty article gets more people to tune in to the series, and it stays on the air for a while, and Katy has regular acting work and gets to be really well known, then good for her.

And if Marie Claire is still around, she can turn down their request for an interview.

Goodbye, Stephen J. Cannell

2010-10-02T00:29:00.000-05:00

A few hours ago, my husband was showing me something on an entertainment website when another headline caught my eye.

"Stephen J. Cannell has died?!" I blurted out. My husband finally clicked on the link and we learned that he had passed away from melanoma at age 69.

Nearly five hours later, I'm still shocked and close to tears. I'm not entirely sure why it's hit me so hard. Maybe because I "see him" regularly through his email newsletter and appearances on Castle. I haven't read any of his novels, but when I was in my late teens and twenties, his TV shows were among my favorites. I loved seeing him typing at the end, then tossing the finished page into the air where it transformed into the letter C. That video clip changed over the years, his hair got grayer, but the image was familiar, one might say comforting. It was like seeing an old friend.

Cannell's career as a television writer began back in the '70s. He wrote episodes for shows I either watched with my parents as they aired or saw later during their second lives in syndication: Adam-12, Switch, Columbo, Baretta. He created Baretta and Black Sheep Squadron, which my mother watched because she liked Robert Conrad, and The Rockford Files, which mom and I both liked.

In 1981, he created one of my favorite series of the '80s, The Greatest American Hero. A few years ago I won the complete series on DVD, and I really enjoyed watching all the episodes again. William Katt and Robert Culp had such great chemistry together, and it was just a fun, good-hearted show. My only disappointment from the DVD came from the replacement of some of the songs that were such a big part of the earlier episodes, I'm assuming because of a rights or royalties issue.

He went on to create Hardcastle and McCormick, Riptide, and The A-Team. Then came The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage, which I watched until the bitter end, primarily out of loyalty to Cannell, because most of the characters weren't at all likable; I guess it was just ahead of its time.

Cannell also created 21 Jump Street, which launched Johnny Depp's career, Wiseguy; Renegade, Silk Stalkings and a handful of other series that weren't as successful. Tenspeed and Brownshoe, for example, ran for only eight episodes, but it made a name for Jeff Goldblum.

In the past few days, we've lost Eddie Fisher and Tony Curtis, two old-timers who also left us with impressive entertainment legacies. My sympathies to their families, but their loss didn't break my heart the way Stephen J. Cannell's did. Maybe it's because 69 is not that old, at least not at my age. Maybe it's because my father and his parents all died of cancer.

Fisher was a crooner whose greatest legacy, in my world anyway, is his daughter Carrie. You know, from Star Wars? Curtis played a lot of fun, irreverent characters in comedies that I've enjoyed.

Cannell, though, was a writer, a creator. When I started watching his shows, I was the shy kid who liked reading and writing and making up stories. When I started seeing that video of him at his typewriter, I was of an age to think that I'd like to have a job like his. Perhaps this loss has hit me so hard because in some small way, we were kindred spirits, joined by words that turned into stories that made me laugh and sometimes cry and which still bring a smile to my face.

Goodbye, Stephen J. Cannell. You made the world - at least the entertainment world, my world - a better place.

How "Snakes on a Plane" could have been good.

2010-09-26T21:08:00.000-05:00

I picked up the Snakes on a Plane DVD in the $3 bin at Big Lots. I did not expect it to be a great film, but I thought it would be an entertaining and perhaps fun way to spend an evening. After watching it last night, indeed while we were watching it, my husband remarked that we paid $3 too much.

In case you just got out of a multi-year stint in a bio-dome, here's a brief synopsis of the film. Nathan Phillips plays Sean, a young man who witnessed the violent murder of a Los Angeles prosecutor in Hawaii. He is taken into protective custody by FBI agent Neville Flynn, played by Samuel L. Jackson. The pair board a plane for L.A. so that Sean can testify against the killer.

In the meantime, the killer ordered an assortment of deadly snakes from an exotic reptiles dealer in California, had the snakes loaded into the plane's cargo hold, arranged a small explosion to free the snakes mid-flight, and sprayed cartons of souvenir leis with snake pheromones, so that when the snakes are freed, they will attack anyone and everyone who got lei'd getting on the flight.

We get no sense of passage of time between the murder and the flight. It didn't seem like more than a day or two. How did the bad guys fly in a few dozen poisonous snakes (a) without anyone noticing and (b) in time to get them on the L.A.-bound flight carrying the witness? It's an unnecessarily complicated plot, when a slightly stronger explosive device could have been rigged to take the plane down in the middle of the Pacific, and no snakes would have been needed.

When the snakes get out of the box, they waste no time and quickly spread throughout the plane. A pet cat in the cargo section is violently killed. Then the young couple joining the mile high club in the plane's restroom are attacked, while flight attendants listening to the screams outside remark what a good time the couple is having. Soon, snakes drop out of the overhead compartments and passengers run screaming while others are gruesomely killed.

The mass chaos makes it hard to follow exactly what's happening. Many of the victims die gruesome deaths that I think the filmmakers intended to be funny, but it's just not. One man is urinating when a snake leaps out of the toilet and bites the closest appendage; a women is bitten on the eye by a snake that slipped into her dress while she was sleeping; another woman is screaming when the snake darts into her mouth and bites her tongue.

I didn't find any of this humorous, just sick and unnecessary. Maybe the filmmakers didn't introduce us to most of these passengers, because they didn't want us to care about them; they wanted us to laugh at their deaths. We didn't even get a lot of background on Flynn, his associate agent, or the witness, Sean, and we got only brief introductions to a few of the other passengers and flight crew.

The rest of the movie is spent trying to correct systems failures caused by the snakes, while attempting, mostly unsuccessfully, to protect the rest of the passengers until the plane can reach California.

"Snakes on a Plane" started with a clever enough concept, and it could have been a decent film.

They only needed three or four snakes that slither around unseen biting unsuspecting passengers and crew. Suddenly people are saying they got bitten by something and dying and no one knows what it is or where it is. That could have created real suspense.

They should have had a smaller plane. The plane they showed on the runway did not look as big as the interior of the plane set, which had two coach sections and an upstairs first class section. A smaller plane would have created a more claustrophobic setting, and fewer passengers would have allowed us to get to know everyone over the course of the story. The body count would have been lower, but the suspense would have been much greater.

Alternatively, if the filmmakers were trying to make a comedy, they shouldn't have put at risk a cat, a small dog, two young children and a baby. The deaths should not have been so gruesome. It wasn't written or shot like a comedy, not even a bad comedy.

In the end, investigators in Los Angeles have linked the sale of the snakes to a dealer in exotic reptiles, so Sean's testimony against the main bad guy isn't even necessary to convict him of murder. Still, it would have been nice to have a shot of Sean and Agent Flynn looking at a headline saying the killer was going to prison for life or getting the death penalty before we see the happy-go-lucky final shots of the two men surfing together.

The movie cost about $33 million to make and earned about double that worldwide. It probably wouldn't have made that much had the film not generated a lot of internet buzz months before it came out. It's a shame that the film didn't live up to the hype and deliver a decent, well-acted story of terror in the air. With a little attention and thought, it certainly could have.

Who's Behind the Tea Party?

2010-09-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, September 16, 2010, I heard a very interesting discussion about the Tea Party movement on NPR. Click here to listen to it yourself.

In the segment, Morning Edition anchor Steve Inskeep talked with two supporters of the Tea Party about what the movement stands for, and he got two very different responses.

Ms. Toby Marie Walker, lead facilitator for the Waco Tea Party, believes the Tea Party movement should focus on fiscal responsibility in government. TEA supposedly stands for Taxed Enough Already, so one could infer that the Tea Party's primary purpose is to reduce taxes and control spending in the national government. Ms. Walker seemed to think that was the most important issue for Tea Party supporters to focus on.

The original tea party, you may recall, was an action taken in 1773 by colonists in Boston who resented paying taxes to the British government. Remember the slogan from the Revolutionary War, "No taxation without representation"?

According to Wikipedia, the current movement began when Graham Makohoniuk made a post online suggesting that people mail a tea bag to Congressfolk who voted in favor of a federal government bailout intended to keep the shaken economy from completely collapsing.

From that simple suggestion grew a movement that now boasts several national organizations or coalitions that promote local chapters and events. In some cases, they are also pushing the agendas of particular parties or politicians. That's my opinion based on the little bit I've heard about the organization and what I've been reading today on their websites.

The media continues to refer to the Tea Party as a grassroots movement, but I believe it's grown beyond that. One example: the California-based Tea Party Express was founded by a political action committee run by Republicans, a fact I found in an article on Salon.com.

The Tea Party Express website doesn't say anything about who runs the organization. Neither does the Tea Party Patriots website. It disturbs me when a website (political or otherwise) doesn't say who is behind it. Is it run by paid staff members or volunteers? Where are these people located? How can organizers (paid or volunteer) be reached, outside of filling out a generic contact form on the site? This kind of identity opaqueness is a red flag for me.

Moving on, the Tea Party organizations that name their intentions all seem to focus on the same issues. Here's one national organization's mission statement, as presented on http://www.teapartypatriots.org: "The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets."

This brings me to the other guest on NPR, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer. He says the Tea Party should stand for everything that the Founding Fathers set down in the Constitution. In his mind, the phrase pledging "that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" means the Founding Fathers were against abortion and gay marriage.

Oh, but wait. That's not from the Constitution. That's from a different document, the Declaration of Independence. If the phrase were in the Constitution, or if one chooses to include the Declaration as part of the Constitution for some reason, I could see how someone could use the right-to-life phrase as an argument against abortion, even though, "In early post-Revolution America, abortion, at least early in pregnancy, was neither prohibited nor uncommon." That's from Constitutional Law professor Lawrence Tribe's book, "Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes." It seems to me that granting the rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" would do more to support the legality of gay marriage. Shouldn't any American have the freedom to pursue happiness by marrying whomever he or she pleases?

BOTTOM LINE

I believe that the grassroots beginnings of the Tea Party movement allowed common citizens to express their opinions on the proposed corporate bailout to their elected representatives. The Tea Party name has now been adopted by fundamentalist right-wing extremists who are surreptitiously using it to pretend a more wide-spread adoption of the same rhetoric they've been spouting for years.

The religious right and the Republican Party have the right to believe and say whatever they want. That right is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, Amendment 1. However, they should do that openly, not in secret behind the name of a true grassroots movement that has now, by and large, become a tool for political deception.

Star Wars Saved My Life

2010-09-16T09:05:00.000-05:00

This past Monday, I drove my mom up to her cabin in Mansfield, Indiana. As we were passing through Huntsville, Alabama, I saw a billboard advertising a Star Wars exhibit at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and immediately started making plans to stop by for a visit on my way home. (Left, the poster that saved my life!)

EXHIBIT CLOSED

On Tuesday, we went into the "big city" of Brazil, Indiana, and while mom was shopping, I got my internet fix using the free WiFi at McDonald's (thanks, Ronald!). I looked up the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and to my extreme disappointment, the exhibit had ended eight days earlier. Eight days. ::sigh::

THE FORCE IS WITH ME

On Wednesday, I was driving home, south on Interstate 65, and I saw a sign for a rest stop up ahead. "Next Rest Area 81 Miles" it said. Hmmm. Better stop for a potty break. Then I saw one of those electronic signs typically used around construction zones, and it said "REST AREA CLOSED." Great. Then the words changed to say "TO TRUCKS." Okay, then, I'm in a passenger vehicle. I can still stop. Wonderful.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I could see why the truck area was closed. It was filled with law enforcement vehicles, primarily trucks hauling trailers and those large "mobile command center" vehicles. I could see the top of a boat behind one of the trailers. A law enforcement helicopter was swooping by overhead.

Oh, dear. It's not going into a heavy drive period like a holiday weekend, so it's probably not one of those demos for the TV news where they kick off a safety initiative. Hmmm.

While I was inside, I spotted a poster for the now closed-and-moved-on Star Wars exhibit, so I stopped by the desk and asked the staff member if - since the exhibit is definitely over - could I have the poster. While the very nice Mr. G. Knox hunted for tools to detach the frame from the wall, I wandered about the small area looking at the posted map (222 miles to Pensacola), and I overheard someone say that the LEO were out in force because of some kind of chase. One traveler mentioned that he'd heard something about it on the CB, but they were headed south, implying - or at least I inferred - that the chase was happening in the northbound lanes.

When Mr. Knox handed me the poster. I thanked him and walked out the door.

AVOIDING AN ACCIDENT

And that's when the law enforcement vehicles took off. Woosh, woosh, woosh, one after the other. I hung out by my car, tried my cell phone and realized that it didn't actually charge while it was plugged in overnight (probably because it was pre-occupied with trying to find a non-existent signal in Mansfield), considered taking out my camera to take action shots of the chopper swooping low over the now-backed-up lanes of traffic. The last LEO vehicles pulled out and the stopped traffic started moving, so I figured I'd just go on.

Traffic was moving along well, and then it stopped. All those LEO were lined up along one lane of traffic, while traffic crept by. News trucks from Montgomery channels 8 & 12 were set-up on the side of the road by what appeared to be an accident. Here's the CBS 8 report on what happened:

And a report on the accident from WSFA 12:

Once past that scene, traffic opened back up. I noticed more people pulled over for the next hour or so, so I guess as long as all the law enforcement was in the area, they were racking up a few tickets. I also noticed streams of LEO heading north again, including that boat plus an airboat. All for a guy wanted on domestic violence charges?! Doesn't make sense.

Then I found another report at Channel 12 WSFA:

The proliferation of LEO vehicles was not related to the chase, although I suppose everyone was ready to help if needed.

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?

The thing that gets me is, if I hadn't pulled off in the rest area and waited that extra few minutes for the poster, I might have been in the middle of this chase. They couldn't use that electronic sign to warn drivers to clear the road? An innocent civilian now has damage to her car and thankfully she's okay, but whatever she was supposed to do Wednesday afternoon was blown, and she'll be dealing with the aftermath of this accident for weeks, explaining to her insurance and having to get repairs done. None of it had to happen, if drivers could have been warned.

I should have won.

2010-08-10T23:04:00.000-05:00

I followed the rules, as far as I can tell. I tweeted about the Geek Twins giveaway. I posted on Facebook. I blogged. I included links to everything that I did. I earned 11 points, as you can see. The two posters with the most points were to win a free download of the Star Wars fandom documentary Jedi Junkies.

The person with the most points, 62, got 50 bonus points for being featured in the documentary's trailer.

The person who took second place had 8 points.

My post has shown up on the site. When I first posted, I got a message that it had to be approved by the moderator.

The post announcing the winners is dated Monday August 9, but it's not time-stamped.

Supposedly the contest ended at midnight MT on August 9.

The only thing I can figure, unless the site owner just has it out for me personally or something, is that by midnight, they meant 12:01am MT, which would have been 1:01am CT, and I didn't post until Monday night, because I was thinking that by midnight they meant more like 11:59pm on Monday.

I am quite devastated.

Jedi Junkies Giveaway

2010-08-09T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of Star Wars, and I suppose about 20 years ago if someone had made a documentary like "Jedi Junkies," I might have been in it. I'm still interested in seeing it, and I'm trying to win a copy from the Geek Twins blog. You can, too. There's still a little time to enter. Head on over to Geek Twins now for your chance.

Film Review: Predators

2010-07-25T21:18:00.000-05:00

THE FRANCHISE SO FAR

Back in 1987, I really enjoyed the movie Predator, the original film about a race of warrior aliens who home to Earth on hunting expeditions. Their prey is an elite military team on a covert rescue mission. The Predator kills the team members one by one, but it is ultimately defeated by the team leader, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The sequel, set in present day Los Angeles, pitted the Predator against rival drug cartels and LAPD officers. It's a much more convoluted story and not as well done as the first film.

The less said about the two Alien V. Predator movies, the better.

A FRESH APPROACH TO THE SAME IDEA

As in the original film, Predators pits a group of humans against alien hunters. In this film, the group of trained soldiers and experienced killers are dropped into an unfamiliar jungle, which they later discover is an alien planet. They soon realize that they are in a game preserve, where they are being hunted for sport by aliens.

The movie begins with an unconscious man (Adrian Brody) plummeting through the air. He wakes up, panics, but then begins beating the parachute harness on his chest. It seems to be malfunctioning, but opens soon enough that the man makes a survivable hard landing. He is equipped for battle so quickly pulls out his machine gun. Soon more humans fall out of the sky near him. None of them know what's happening, and they are inclined to fight with each other. Brody (his character refuses to give his name) convinces them to calm down, and they figure out that most of them are soldiers, one is a convicted murderer, and one tells them he's a doctor. No one can identify the jungle that they're in, so they begin to travel towards higher ground, where they can observe the lay of the land. When they reach a clearing, they see a sky filled with planets and realize they are no longer on Earth.

During their journey, the group are pursued by alien hunting dogs, encounter booby traps set by another human, and are almost lured into an ambush when the Predators nab one of their group and use him to set a trap. They locate a death camp, where they see the bodies and bones of many previous victims, as well as a living Predator captive. One more human is killed there. The lone female in the group (Alice Braga) recognized the captured Predator, and explains that a similar creature attacked a group of soldiers in Guatemala in 1987 (a reference to the first film).

Another member of the group is almost killed when another human comes to the rescue. Noland (Laurence Fishburne) has been on the planet for a long time, surviving by salvaging weapons and tools from the Predators and their victims. He talks to an imaginary friend, seemingly suffering from the stress of battle and being alone. He tells the group that an alien spaceship has landed near the death camp, and he also explains that they are up against two species of Predators. One is larger and kills the smaller ones (the ones we have seen on Earth before) for sport, just as they kill the humans.

Predators find their camp and several of the humans are killed. One of the humans uses an ancient Japanese sword and duels with a Predator. Both are killed. The doctor is injured by a steel jaw trap, and Brody encourages Braga to leave him. She refuses. Brody releases the Predator in the camp and they seem to come to an understanding. Then the bigger Predator attacks. Brody runs for the spaceship. The spaceship takes off. The big Predator kills the little Predator. The spaceship blows up.

BIG SPOILER ALERT!!

The doctor and Braga are trapped in a pit. Braga offers to kill them both before the Predators can, but he doesn't care about that. He cuts Braga with a poisoned knife, paralyzing her. He tells her that he's a murderer and is going to kill her. Brody comes back in the nick of time, having not gotten on the spaceship after all, and he stops the doctor. In a technique similar to what the Predators did with the first human victim, Brody uses the doctor to lure the Predator close then detonates a bunch of grenades. The Predator is not killed, so they have a big final battle. Braga is wounded. Brody beats the Predator to death. Brody admits that his name is Royce and Braga introduces herself as Isabelle. They look up and see a bunch of new victims parachuting into the jungle, and Brody announces that it's time to find a way off this planet.

Credits roll over to the tune of "Long Tall Sally" sung by Little Richard.

MY COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Most of the characters are not likeable. They are thugs and murderers. Why should we care that they are in the position of being hunted like animals. They are animals.

The planet was too much like Earth. The doctor recognizes a strange looking plant as containing a dangerous neurotoxin. I know they had to film on Earth, but we saw nothing alien at all except the Predators and one alien hunting victim. No plants that were unrecognizable. No animals or birds. (Hubby says he heard birds but I don't recall seeing any.) Some kind of beetle is found in the crate that an alien captive was dropped in, and they saw the same beetles on the corpse. Brody slapped a bug on his neck once. Just once. He also skewered a beetle of some kind, but I don't know if it was the same as the ones on the alien.

I thought Brody was going to eat the beetle. It would have been gross, but not at all unexpected. They hadn't eaten or said anything about food the whole time. They walked and walked and walked and ran and fought and walked, and never talked about being hungry or thirsty. Some of them had their battle backpacks with them; maybe they had some rations or bottled water, but we never saw it. We never saw the inevitable confrontation by the people who didn't have packs with them and would have also been hungry or thirsty.

The doctor is hanging from his parachute straps in a tree when the others first encounter him. He falls into a pool of water. It's played for laughs like, he's acting like he's going to drown then he stands up. None of these people think about the things that are in water in a jungle. There might have been leeches or bacteria or any number of nasty things. Nobody says to get out quick or anything. Later they are chased off a cliff and into a larger body of water, but they still don't seem concerned about dangers that might be in the water.

When Isabelle (Braga) tells about the Guatemala incident, she says one man survived by covering himself with mud to hide his body heat. The movie goes on for another hour before anyone uses that tip, and even then, it's not really used effectively. A ring of fire is more useful camouflage at that point.

The humans don't seem very careful to grab weapons when someone is killed. They do salvage a few things from Noland's place when they have to leave quickly. Near the beginning, they are using their guns pretty carelessly. After a big gun battle, when they have wasted a lot of ammo, in my opinion, Brody says that they need to count their rounds and conserve what they have, but we don't get a count and they don't seem ever to try to make their shots count.

The doctor's change at the end seems to come out of the blue. He has one conversation with the convicted killer/rapist that could possibly have made us wonder about it, but if they tried to do something subtle, it was too subtle for me. Near the end, he makes one decision that didn't seem in character, and then he lies about a photograph, but this was very near the end. It almost seems like they started out with him as a doctor then decided to go a different direction midway through the script.

The doctor finds the neurotoxin plant early on. Two other characters know about it. we don't see what the doctor does with the poison on his little knife; one assumes he wiped it off somewhere. At no point does anyone suggest that they use the neurotoxin on spears or arrows or bullets that might help defeat the alien enemy. Nor does anyone suggest that they try to reset the booby traps at the other human's camp or create similar ones around a camp of their own. It's like they just don't think about it.

The music was adequate and draws on the themes created by Alan Silvestri for the first film. New composer John Debney has never done anything truly inventive or inspiring, so it's not a surprise that the score wasn't anything special. The Little Richard tune was used in a couple of scenes in the original film, but my husband and I didn't remember it from the first movie, so its use over the end credits was mystifying at the time.

The direction by Nimród Antal was adequate. It's certainly not the worst film direction I've seen. Only one scene featured truly irritating camera work; it's near the beginning when the convict is fighting with a soldier from Sierra Leone. They stand up and the camera is shaking and the men are wobbling, and it's hard to focus in on anything. My husband was not impressed with the way some of the fights were shot. Antal has done a couple of features and apparently a lot of music videos. It's a really bad idea to use music video and videogame directors to direct features, but it seems to be the recruitment tool of choice for Hollywood. I think that's a lot of the reason that movies don't seem to have much heart and soul these days.

Predators was an interesting enough film and a somewhat worthy sequel to the 1987 movie. It's far from a great film. Like so many movies today, it seems less a cohesive script than a compilation of scenes and lines and characters cobbled together from previous films. It's not well thought out. There's no point to having the fight on an alien planet, except that it leaves two characters trapped there in set-up for another sequel.

I'm trying something new.

2010-07-13T21:55:00.000-05:00

The BeFrugal website contacted me about becoming an advertising affiliate, and through that site I learned about Commission Junction. The registration process took a few minutes, and now I'm about to ad an advertising widget to my blog. I have Google Ads, but they're really not very targeted. I guess they key in on select words and stick up links, which I've never completely trusted, either on my site or anyone else's. I always figured it was worth having, even though hardly anyone visits my blogs. It can't hurt.

And so, it can't hurt to put in an advertising widget for something specific, and through BeFrugal and Commission Junction, I can choose what business I want to feature. I selected Entirely Pets, which is a website I patronize. They have a really good price on Pill Pockets, which are instrumental to getting my cat Remy to take his heart medicine without a fight. Remy's littermate died of a heart attack. Poor Quinn had a terrible time with all the meds he had to take after his first attack. Not only that, but we had to take him to a lot of different vets for tests, and at one of those locations he picked up a respiratory infection which he then passed to all the other cats in the household. Just about the time we though he was going to recover fully, he had another attack.

Anyway, between the heart meds and the respiratory meds, Quinn was taking pills around the clock. It broke our hearts that he would look sad and try to hide from us to avoid the pills.

A few months after Quinn died, Remy's heart murmur was diagnosed. He only takes one quarter of a very small pill every day, and at first we hid it in Pounce Hairball Treats. That can be a little messy, and I didn't necessarily like to give him a hairball treat every day.

Finally, we found Pill Pockets. A half a pocket easily hides his tiny pill, so a bag of 45 can last for almost three months. I say almost because we also use them as treats for everyone, and sometimes I'll break up an allergy pill into pieces and hide them in pockets for Trickster, when he's having a bad day.

Still, it's kind of pricey at the stores. They are anywhere from $7.99 to $10.99 a bag locally. When we were first getting them, I didn't realize they had expiration dates and a local (chain) store sold me two expired bags! When I opened the first bag, I knew there was something wrong, because they were dry and crumbly. Then I saw the date stamp. I still had the receipt and took them back to the store. They had two more expired bags on the shelf, so I felt it was easy to prove I had just purchased them and wasn't trying to pull something. They still didn't want to give me a refund! I finally convinced the manager to give me my money back, but I will never shop there again.

Entirely Pets has always shipped my product well in advance of the expiration date. It only takes few days to get an order filled. I'm on their mailing list, so I regularly get offers for free shipping over $25. I buy six bags at a time and they're about $5 each, so I easily meet the minimum. I've been really pleased with their service and the quality of the product I receive, so that's why I picked their company for my first affiliate ad.

Entirely Pets did not ask me to do this. I'll get credit for every click through on the ad in my sidebar, but that's all. I'm just happy to have the opportunity to help someone else save a few bucks and to help a business that does a good job.

Cox HSI is hijacking websites to make money.

2010-07-09T22:56:00.000-05:00

I am so mad at Cox Communications, my home ISP, that I could spit nails.

If you've read my blog before, you know I enter a lot of sweepstakes. I visit 50-60 websites per night to fill out entry forms and to learn more about the sponsors. That's not counting my webmail service (not Cox); news and weather sites; entertainment sites and forums.

On a usual night, I might get a couple of "page not found" messages. Sometimes the page will load just fine a minute or two later. Sometimes the URL was posted somewhere incorrectly.

I have noticed, of late, that I was seeing a lot of "Cox Finder" error pages instead of the usual "page not found" pages. I guess I paid more attention tonight because the problem was so frequent and irritating.

The Cox Finder, or as they refer to it the "Enhanced Error Results" page, tells the user that the page cannot be loaded, but wouldn't you like to try one of these other pages instead?

Here's what the Cox website says about "Enhanced Error Results":

Cox is currently providing an enhanced error results service that redirects URL entries in Internet Explorer to relevant alternative results provided by Yahoo! Search Marketing. When no relevant keyword can be extracted to produce a list of alternative sites, a search box is presented to the users so they can conduct the search again. If relevant results are identified, an enhanced results page displays providing a suggested list of alternative sites.

My arguments:

(1) I wasn't searching for terms. I plugged in a URL or clicked on a link.

(2) I primarily use Mozilla Firefox. I only use Internet Explorer when a site doesn't open correctly in Firefox.

(3) I received these "Enhanced Error Results" instead of valid URLs. In one case, I had a site open but something within the page (an ad or a form) showed the Cox Finder page. I refreshed, and then I got the Cox Finder message for the whole page. Eventually, the page reloaded after multiple tries from the original link.

(4) I received the "Enhanced Error Results" when trying to visit a manufacturer's website. The same website came up as the last search result in a list of about 10 options. Cox says, "The results served are a combination of sponsored links and ‘natural’ search results, depending on what you were looking for –- just the same as if you used any search engine."

As I became more and more frustrated and suspicious of Cox's motives and methods, I did a Google search for the phrase and found a FAQ about "Enhanced Error Results" on the Cox website. I found instructions on how to opt-out. I logged into my account and followed the instructions. Then I logged into a different account and attempted to follow the instructions, and I received a message that I had already opted out.

I continued to have some problems off and on with pages not loading. Then I started seeing the "Enhanced Error Results" again.

Giving Cox the benefit of the doubt, I contacted their 24/7 Live Technical Support via Chat. Here's how it began:

Edward> My name is Edward, welcome to Cox High Speed Internet Online Support.

Auriette> Is there some problem with Cox HSI service in my area tonight?

Edward> I am really sorry for the inconvenience.
Edward> Unfortunately, there is difficulty with the e-mail service for your
area.
Edward> Our technicians are aware of the issue and are currently taking care of
it.

Hmm. Did I say I was having problem with my email? I don't use Cox for email. So I asked if he meant there was a problem with internet connectivity. At that point, he asked for all kinds of account information. Now, if he didn't know where I was, how did he know there was an email service issue in my area?

So then Edward tells me "I have checked your modem signals and are working properly and there is no reported outage for your area."

And then he tries to blame it on my router, saying, "we do not provide technical assistance for connections behind a third party router."

This would be the router that Cox's installer recommended and installed more than five years ago. We've never been connected to the internet without it. I've had techs over the phone tell me to disconnect everything and unplug it and turn it all back on, but never to remove the router and connect the modem directly to the internet, and I had no intention of trying it tonight, because I believe the problem is related to this sudden influx of sales pitches via the "Enhanced Error Results."

So, I ask:

Auriette> I opted out of the "Enhanced Error Results" sales page over two hours
ago. How long does it normally take for the opt-out to take full effect?

Edward> It is immediately. However, sometimes the site does not work.

Ahhh. Sometimes the site doesn't work. Hmmm.

So Edward pastes in a link and says I'll have to change my settings manually in order to "opt out." I cannot, however, copy or paste the link.

Auriette> Please wait while I try that.
Auriette> I'm not able to copy and paste that link or to click on it.
Auriette> Please email to auriette@tmlindsey.com

Edward> Just a moment please.

That is not the end of our chat, but it is the end of the transcript that Edward emailed to me. Here's what really happened:

I ask him to send it to the email address that I use, the email that I had open on my desktop. He sent it to my Cox address. I ask him again to send it to my usual email address and HE LIED TO ME! He said he sent it there, but he sent it again to the Cox address.

AND THEN HE DISCONNECTED.

I was able to click on the link in the transcript and follow the instructions to manually set my DNS settings. I'm not sure what will happen the next time I have to repair my LAN settings after leaving on the firewall for a few minutes.

I am continuing to have problems with my internet connection, though I haven't seen the "Enhanced Error Results" page lately.

Cox needs to understand that they are not the only option for broadband connection. By partnering with Yahoo Search for this "Enhanced Error Results" process, they are playing games with their customers. In trying to earn a few pennies from click throughs, they are going to end up losing steady customers to other ISPs. Their rude, incompetent, lying tech support personnel will only hurt the situation.

I hope they wise up and correct this problem.

UPDATE: 24 hours later, and I haven't gotten a single "page not found" of any variety, and no sign of the Cox Finder "Enhanced Error Results" page. Perhaps my opt-out was finally processed. Maybe they repaired the non-existent problem that was causing the lost connections. I'm still suspicious of the Cox-Yahoo partnership.

Review: The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

2010-07-03T11:44:00.001-05:00

Contains observations that may be considered SPOILERS.

I received an advanced reading copy of “The Left Hand of God” through a giveaway at the Goodreads website. It’s not something I would have picked up on my own. I’m not sure if that small detail colored the way I feel about the novel, but it’s worth mentioning.

The plot seems fairly standard, combining elements from myth, fairy tales and film. Young boys are bought or kidnapped and brought to a monastery where they are cruelly treated and trained for warfare. The protagonist is Thomas Cale, a boy brought to the Sanctuary as a child and who is now the top student. He witnesses an unexpected and savage event that leads him to escape the Sanctuary, taking with him three others. They make their way to Memphis, major city, where Cale earns both respect and hatred. He falls in love, and that completely changes his outlook and approach to combat. The book concludes with a massive battle between the Redeemers of the Sanctuary and the Materazzi of Memphis.

The story doesn’t end there, because “The Left Hand of God” is, in another commonality, the first in a trilogy.

I must admit that the novel is compelling. I was never inclined to set it down and leave it, which I have done with books on rare occasions. I wanted to know what happened to the characters and what secrets they were hiding. I can’t say that the characters are well developed. We don’t often see into their thoughts, and when we do, it’s as though the door is cracked just a little. We get a glimpse, just enough to let us know that there is much more that remains tantalizingly beyond our view.

The time and place of the story is one of the most frustrating elements. According to the back cover blurb and the publisher’s website, “The Left Hand of God” is set in a “distant, dystopian past.” Many of the locations we visit or hear about bear familiar names: Memphis, the Appalachians, Fatima, Silbury Hill. Even the ones that didn’t sound familiar tend to show up in a web search, although they are not close together. The presence of plate armour suggests that it takes place during the middle ages, though certain aspects seem more akin to the Roman Empire. The characters will make one comment that makes it seem later in history then say something that seems contradictory.

The language includes many unfamiliar terms, some of which appears to be slang. I’m not sure those words are British slang or something that Hoffman made up. The characters know what they mean, so nothing is defined for us. Sometimes the meaning is easily discerned, but at other times I had no idea what I was supposed to be picturing or what the character was trying to say. A couple of times, I was left wondering if I was experiencing a typographical error. When the book says “squits” was it a typo for “squirts?” Hard to say. As I mentioned, the copy I have is an advanced reading copy, specifically an “advance uncorrected proof.” Had the book not been released shortly before I started reading it, I might have felt a duty to record the many typos and mail it in. In the past, I have read ARCs that contained typos and I have found those typos in for-sale copies of the book. I truly wonder if the “uncorrected proofs” are actually used for proofing.

In addition to the typos, I found any number of sentences that were not well constructed. I sometimes had to read over a line several times, trying different inflections and breaks to figure out exactly what Hoffman intended to say. Most of the time, I eventually understood. A couple of times, I just moved on. Those lines just weren’t written clearly, and could have been broken up or rearranged to have them make more sense.

The Redeemers are a religious cult that is very much based on Christianity or perhaps more specifically Catholicism. They worship the Hanged Redeemer, a martyr worshipped as the son of God, and death without redemption means burning for all eternity. Hoffman makes frequent and obvious parallels between the faiths. One of the primary Redeemer characters reveals, at the end of the novel, a prophesy given to him by a vision of the Redeemer’s mother.

It was at that point, at the end, that I came to believe that the novel takes place in a history so long ago that it’s been forgotten, with mankind and all civilization wiped out in the interim and reinvented by a God trying again to get things right.

So just tell me that. Don’t leave me trying to figure out if this is an alternate history or a fantasy world that just seems like Earth. I also would have liked more insight into who was telling the story. The book starts out (and I’m pulling this from the official series website, not the uncorrected proof):

“Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie, for there is no redemption that goes on there…”

The first word suggests that someone is telling this story, someone who witnessed the events or who’s passing down the legend. It’s not written in first person, so it can’t be (or shouldn’t be) any of the characters we meet in the book. Sometimes, the narrator is omniscient. He knows what’s going on at the Sanctuary after Cale leaves, he tells us about secret meetings between a Redeemer agent and Kitty the Hare, a perverse businessman who seems to have some sort of physical deformity or mutation. Sometimes the narrator gives us a glimpse into a character’s mind; at other times, we get no insight into what anyone is really thinking.

While I was compelled to finish reading this book, I am not inclined to buy the next two books. I feel no pressing knowledge to know what happens next. So much of the story seems trite, endless set-up for religious and social commentary from the author, which he may reveal by the end or perhaps he’ll just let the readers decide for themselves.

A final note: on the official website for the trilogy I found a map of Cale’s world. I’m not sure if the map or any reference to it was included in the for-sale version. If not, it should have been. It doesn’t offer any particular insight, but it would have been a nice touch. I would also like to have had a guide to pronunciation for unfamiliar names and words and a dictionary of the unfamiliar or slang terms.

“The Left Hand of God” was released in hardcover in June 2010. It’s available for $25.95 from Penguin.com.

Review: The Exile of Sara Stevenson (novel)

2010-06-07T22:26:00.000-05:00

I won a copy of "The Exile of Sara Stevenson" on goodreads. I finished it a couple of days ago, and I've been mulling over what I should say about it. I was very intrigued by the blurb that suggested a supernatural element.

I began reading the book during my day at jury duty, and it was a great way to pass the time. The characters are all well-drawn and intriguing. It's written in first-person, and we can tell that the other people populating the story have secrets of their own, but we must discover them along with Sara.

I found the dialogue to be very well written. Almost everyone who appears in the book is Scottish, but they speak in a variety of dialects, and author Darci Hannah does a great job of writing so that I could really hear the characters' voices.

The farther along I got into the book, I found myself wondering when the mysterious time travel element would come into play. It's well over halfway into the book when we get our first inkling of what's going to happen (or what's happening, rather).

When we reach the denouement, I found it a little odd and not entirely satisfying. On the surface, it's the kind of lighthouse story that might be passed along from generation to generation. Maybe there's just a little too much to it. I don't want to say too much and ruin it for anyone.

I enjoy historical romances, some historical non-fiction, and science fiction. I'm not someone who usually enjoys "good literature." Please don't take that the wrong way, Darci! Aside from that little bit of oddness at the end, I really enjoyed the book. I would say that I might have enjoyed it more had the supernatural element not been revealed in the cover blurb; then the events would have been more mysterious and let me "play along" with Sara trying to figure out what's happening. However, that element is part of what interested me in reading the book, and not giving a hint could also disappoint readers who don't like that kind of thing in their fiction.

"Extraordinary Measures" DVD Review

2010-05-31T21:34:00.000-05:00

We finally picked up the DVD of "Extraordinary Measures" this weekend and watched it tonight. CAUTION: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

I am an unabashed Harrison Ford fan, and he did a very good portraying a crotchety and opinionated scientist who forms an uneasy partnership with the father of two children debilitated by the rare condition Pompe's Disease. Both men are seeking a cure for Pompe's for their own reasons; of course the father, John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) is the more driven of the two. He will do whatever it takes to keep his children alive.

Dr. Robert Stonehill is twice-divorced and spends all his time at his university laboratory. He wants things done his way and on his schedule. He doesn't care about the profitability of a drug or how to get it approved by the FDA; he just does the research. He alienates potential investors, then complains loudly when Crowley offers them lucrative terms to get them on board. When the pair's newly formed company is having a hard time financially, he courts a larger biotech company to buy them out. This time, Stonehill talks the talk and walks the walk that the executives want to see. The start-up is absorbed into the larger company, Stonehill and Crowley relocate to the corporate labs, and the two of them butt heads with the hierarchy to get what they want. In Stonehill's case, he just wants to do things his way. For Crowley, it ultimately means leaving his job in order to get his two children -- for whom time is growing short -- into the clinical trials.

It's really hard to follow the timeline of the movie. Everything seems to be happening too fast. As it turns out, the real story evolved over several years. The movie begins on Megan Crowley's 8th birthday, and I believe it is her 9th birthday that we see near the end of the film. That's very significant because research that John Crowley is shown reviewing near the beginning suggests that children with the
disease are not expected to live more than nine years.

I did not fully get a sense of urgency during the film. Some of that could be because I knew the outcome of the story; I had seen video of Megan and Patrick Crowley taken when they visited the set of the movie probably two years ago. I hesitate to accept all the "blame" for the lack of urgency, though, because when I saw "Valkyrie" (the Tom Cruise-starrer that told the story of a plot to kill Hitler), I knew that the group failed and the men involved were executed), and yet I still felt great suspense at each step of the way.

The filmmakers did not focus very much on the home life. In fact, two deleted scenes on the DVD showed the tension between John Crowley and his wife Aileen. Scenes like that would have gone a long way to demonstrate the real-life toll that Crowley's drive for a cure was taking on his family. Megan Crowley was presented as a typical
precocious adolescent, always positive and a real trooper. If she throws a tantrum once in a while (another excised scene available on the DVD), it's okay, because she may not live very much longer. When mom gave in following the tantrum, I would have liked to have seen something in her eyes and demeanor that she's giving in because how can she deny her child the small joy of sparkly sunglasses (even though she'd just learned that her husband took out a second mortgage on their home to fund research).

We see very little of Patrick Crowley, their younger son with Pompe. He seems much weaker than Megan and contributes little to the story. There's not even any discussion about his being weaker, of losing muscle control sooner than Megan, just a few knowing glances between the parents. The third Crowley child is portrayed
as being completely understanding, even selling his toys to raise money for a research fundraiser.

Near the beginning of the film, Crowley makes the decision to leave the pharmaceutical company he works for to partner with Stonefield in a new venture. He discusses with his wife the difficulty if he loses his insurance (health care costs, including home nurse care, are $40,000 a month according to the script). Yet, he makes the move with no further mention of any financial strain for his family. Even the aforementioned deleted scene suggests that the money from the second mortgage went to the company, not to personal expenses. When the film begins, the Crowleys are living in a rather nice looking two-story house in Oregon. Later (after the start-up gets bought out), they are shown living in what looks like a mansion on a cliff. These are not ordinary people concerned about paying hefty medical bills. Is this a Hollywoodization of the story, designed to present the Crowley family in the best possible light? Or did the screenwriters leave out that they are an independently wealthy family who can afford, unlike the average person, to buy a custom treatment for their children's rare disease? (I don't mean to downplay the difference this treatment has made in the lives of other Pompe families.)

In doing a little further research about Stonehill, I found out that he doesn't really exist. The real scientist is Dr. William Canfield. He started his company without Crowley and brought him aboard later. Other scientists who also made contributions to the same area of research weren't mentioned at all and they (or at least their supporters) are a little peeved. Crowley, meanwhile, is still working in the biotech industry and also has a political career (which could explain some of the whitewashing of the story). If you're interested, you can read more here:

http://harrisonfordonline.com/?p=1588
http://harrisonfordonline.com/?p=6992

I found it interesting that Dee Wallace (the mom in "E.T." and "Cujo") played a character who had one or two lines and Alan Ruck (the friend whose dad's car they used in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off) also had a tiny little role. Work's work, I guess, but I felt bad for them.

As we watched the film, my husband kept saying, "Oh this must be where the terrorists attack and try to take over the lab and Stonefield has to stop them. Oh, guess not." He was only partly joking; we have seen too many examples of where a role was changed to be more action-oriented after Harrison Ford was cast. In this one, the most action Harrison sees is running down the sidewalk in a race with the wheelchair-bound Megan.

It's a good enough little film, and for the few people who see it, it will raise awareness of this debilitating condition. It's easy to see, though, why "Extraordinary Measures" did not garner much critical acclaim or popular success.

The only extras on the DVD are the movie trailer (and previews for a few other films), several deleted scenes, and two featurettes - one on the making of the film and the other on John Crowley (who also appears in the film in a small role as a corporate executive).

Why can't I feel strong positive emotions anymore?

2010-05-22T08:20:00.000-05:00

For a while, I've been noticing that nothing really excites me anymore. Two years ago, we went to England, and while I was somewhat excited, the worry factors overpowered it. What was going to go wrong? Was my husband going to have a good time? Now that I look back, the first things that come to my mind about the trip were the things that did go wrong. I think of the crying babies that kept us awake all night on the flight over. I remember that I didn't write down the address of one of the B&Bs, so I had to go find an internet café, and Tim decided to wait with the luggage in the underground, so every minute I was gone, I knew that he was worrying and waiting and wondering. Those memories overpower the good memories like seeing Kenneth Branagh in Ivanov and David Tennant in Hamlet, of visiting the Doctor Who exhibit and having lunch in an outdoor market, and walking along the Thames until we found the London Bridge.

Recently, I was in a play, and I arrived for opening night, and I was a little worried about myself because I didn't have that nervous anticipation, the excitement, the little butterflies that usually accompanied an opening night for me. When I arrived at the theatre and saw the buzz of activity, a few patrons waiting in the lobby, I started feeling a little excited, but not THE feelings I used to have when I performed in theatre years ago. This was the biggest role I've done in years. When I did Short Attention Span Theatre and my scene was maybe 8 minutes long, max, I thought I wasn't nervous at all because it was just a tiny part of the evening. This time, I was in lot of scenes and I still didn't have that energy that comes from opening night.

The only strong emotions I feel are the negative ones. When I worry or get stressed, then I start crying, then my chest tightens up. Although now that I'm writing this and thinking about it, those times even come farther apart than they used to.

Except that I don't want the expense, I should probably see a psychiatrist. I am so tired of never feeling good about myself. When something good comes along, I can't fully enjoy it. It's like most of my emotional nerve endings are dead, and the ones that are still alive only transmit negative energy.

What can I do to be happy?

Star Wars Tees for Gals

2010-04-30T15:37:00.000-05:00

I'm really exited by the new Her Universe line of clothing for female Star Wars fans! No products are available online yet, but the site says that an online shop is coming soon. I'm not sure that a tee cut and designed for women would work for me, because I'm not a skinny young girl anymore. However, I would like to see more adult shirts featuring female characters like Leia and Padmé. Can't wait to see the line when it's revealed!

Am I too critical?

2010-03-18T22:19:00.000-05:00

My mom accuses my husband and I both of being too critical. We do have high expectations, whether it's with customer service or product quality or personal actions. We spend a lot of our time together talking about the stupidity that we see from people on a daily basis.

Would we be happier if we were less critical? If we lowered our expectations on a personal, national and global level?

Maybe.

I can't help but think what a better world this would be if people were able to meet our expectations. It's not that it's impossible. It's just that people don't think or don't care, and they do the minimum necessary in their jobs and in their lives instead of doing the very best that they can and being the best that they can be.

They're satisfied. And I'm critical.

Would you like a free Oreck Vacuum?

2010-02-20T23:27:00.001-06:00

I sure would. That's why I've been entering every Oreck giveaway I can find, because I can't afford to buy one right now. The feature I like best about the Oreck Halo is the UV germ-killing light. Using an Oreck makes your house cleaner AND healthier. This post is part of my attempt to win an Oreck vacuum cleaner. Blogger Mom's Focus on Cyberworld is giving away an Oreck Halo via her blog. Click on the link for your chance to win.

Even a man who is pure in heart....

2010-02-14T22:23:00.001-06:00

Tim and I went to see "The Wolfman" with Benicio Del Toro for Valentine's Day. We both love the old Universal Horror films, as does Mr. Del Toro, so despite some mixed reviews, we had high hopes for the film. We were not disappointed. We came right home and watched "The Wolf Man" with Lon Chaney (Tim had also watched it on Saturday night) for comparison's sake.

The new film begins with the poem that is oft-repeated in the original film. I was surprised that they made two changes to the poem, but not the one I expected.

The new poem is Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

The original by screenwriter Curt Siodmak is Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

I'm not sure what the difference is between "pure in heart" and "pure of heart." I gather that "wolfsbane" is the correct name for the plant.

I expected them to change the last line, or rather to use the last line from one of the subsequent Wolf Man movies. Later films used "when the moon is shining bright" and "when the moon is full and bright" rather than the autumn moon reference.

Moving on, there's really just one major change in the basic story from 1941, and that's who the werewolf is who bites Larry Talbot. They could have stuck with Bela the gypsy and been just fine. What they did works fine, but it wasn't necessary.

The acting is excellent and so is the make-up. Rick Baker, famous for his work on "An American Werewolf in London" and a host of other films, did a great job on the transformation, keeping it faithful while also keeping it fresh. Mr. Baker also makes a brief appearance in the film as one of the villagers hunting the werewolf. Some CGI is also used, of course. You can't get away from that these days, and from what I've heard the studio demanded some changes, including more CGI and more gore (which really could have been scaled back without losing any of the intensity of the scenes).

Joe Johnston directed the film. I have always enjoyed his work, and he did a fine job on this film, setting a creepy mood and depicting the horror that Larry Talbot goes through after he is bitten.

I was sad that more people didn't come to see the film today, but we saw it at kind of an off-cinema in town; the Rave probably had more people, but we're made at them right now. Maybe most people don't want gore on Valentine's Day, either. A father and middle school age child was there, and a family with elementary school age children. Of course the youngest child was scared, or at least that's what he kept saying very loudly. At least the mother took him outside a couple of times. I do not understand what people are thinking to bring a small child to a bloody horror movie.

We'll definitely buy the DVD of "The Wolfman" when it comes out, and I sincerely hope that Mrs. Johnston, Baker and Del Toro will do a commentary with all three present in the studio. I think that would be very interesting and enlightening.

Win a Slanket

2010-02-14T22:21:00.000-06:00

Brown Couch Events is giving away a Slanket for Two. It's a Valentine's Day giveaway, so hurry on over.

Waiting for Results

2010-02-13T07:49:00.000-06:00

For seven years, when I worked as a TV news producer, I didn't really wait for results. Sure, we had the ratings four times a year, but our station did well as a whole, and when I had a newscast for a while, the ratings usually seemed to go up. I never felt like I could take full responsibility for the increase, but I felt good about it. Still, my focus was not on what would give the 'cast strong ratings, it was on reporting the news well, on giving people information they could use, accurately and without bias.

Now, I'm in public relations, a field where I'm constantly waiting for results. You throw a party or put on a show, and it's not just about how well it's done, it's about how many people come, how much money is spent, and what's being said about it. I chose to move into this field, and I enjoy a lot of what I do. Sometimes I feel good about my results, at least until someone tells me that it should have been better.

When I feel badly about the results, I feel that I have let everyone around me down.

So, basically, I've lost the good feeling I had at the end of a newsday, where the work was its own reward, and I think that's affected my mental and physical health.

I can't go back to the news. I didn't think I burned any bridges when I left, but apparently I did. My new career in public relations is the only one I have, for better or worse. All I can do is my best, even if it's not always good enough.

Would you like to check out my current projects?
FPRA Pensacola 2010 Toolbox: PR Power Tools
Pensacola Little Theatre

How does what you do affect your overall well-being?

Don't buy Acer for Customer Service

2010-02-07T22:18:00.000-06:00

My Acer Aspire was part of the massive recall for a potentially hazardous wiring problem. The company did not notify me. I contacted them and arranged to ship it back. Despite this not being my fault, they used FedEx Ground, instead of overnight, thus taking my laptop out of service for a week.

The company sent me three pages of generic shipping and repair information that was poorly organized. The company failed to verify my preferred shipping address and sent it to my home instead of my work. I couldn't be home because I was at work. I tried to get the address changed, but the company representative didn't understand the terms of their contract, wasting more valuable time. I couldn't pick it up from FedEx because the nearest Ground distribution center is two hours drive away.

Lucky, FedEx has terrific customer service and was able to get it re-routed to me.

Then I opened the box to find my computer bouncing around in inadequate packaging. They had my original manufacturer's box, but apparently that was too much trouble for them to repack it in and they threw it away. After a number of complaints to corporate management, the sales rep called me back, said I'd simply failed to understand the instructions sent to me, and the laptop was packed loosely and that they intentionally packed it so that it would bounce around.

Two weeks ago, I would have encouraged anyone to buy an Acer computer. It seems to have very good battery life, and I hadn't had any problems with it. Now, I would discourage the purchase of an Acer product, because they don't offer good customer support when things go wrong, even if it's their own shoddy workmanship that caused the problem in the first place.

I re-wrote their repair information sheet for them, too. I wanted them to see how their convoluted instruction sheet could be made simpler. They have not responded, which only reinforces that they really don't care about making things easier for their customers. They just want to blame them when it's their communications strategy that's at fault.

No luck at the movies.

2010-02-07T22:03:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, January 31, I tried to go see the new Harrison Ford film, Extraordinary Measures. We got to the box office window at the Rave Pensacola on Bayou only to be told that the projector was having problems and the showing had been cancelled. We saw Sherlock Holmes instead, which we both enjoyed and the fairly full house was surprisingly well-behaved, aside from the young woman who sat beside me and seemed intent on carrying on a conversation with her date throughout the film. She kept it down after I made a snarky comment about it.

On Sunday, February 7, we tried again to see Extraordinary Measures. The Bayou Rave only had one screening, at 11am and we'd missed it, so we went to the other Rave on "W" Street. That location has become quite rundown! We were the only one in the theatre for about 15 minutes. Then an old couple came in. Then with just a couple of minutes to go until the movie theatre, the trouble group came in. Mom, Dad, their pre-schooler, and the grandparents. They were all talking in normal tones of voice, like they were at home, but one had hopes that things would settle down once the movie started. No luck. The child talked constantly, loudly, in a clear high-pitched voice that was impossible to tune out. Mom shushed him frequently, but the child has not been taught at home to be quiet or to behave. Grandma was talking to the child, still in normal tones, as well as repeating everything to Grandpa. So, we left and got our money back.

Why are people so inconsiderate as to bring an undisciplined child to a movie that is clearly over his/her head? Why do they think it's appropriate to speak in normal tones of voice?

I'm really disappointed. I haven't missed a Harrison Ford film in the theatre since the last century (with the exception of Crossing Over which had only limited release). I'll be surprised if it's still around next weekend. Looks like I'll just have to wait for the DVD.

I need a new mattress!

2010-02-04T23:02:00.000-06:00

A few years ago, hubby and I decided it was time for new mattresses. We have a queen frame and two twin XL mattresses. We went to a local place, Koala, that makes mattresses. Apparently not very well. We tried some mattresses and told them how firm we wanted them, went back and they weren't firm enough, they told us they'd mis-quoted us but they'd stand by the price. We borrowed a truck and took them home and it wasn't long before we heard one of them crack inside. Of course by then, we couldn't find the paperwork and when we finally did it was just too big a pain to go back. We'll never buy from them again, though.

Now the "new" mattresses are at least seven years old, and they're kind of saggy. They're not comfortable at all. We turn them regularly (top to bottom and back to front), and maybe that has helped prolong the lives, but it's time for them to go now.

I'd love to win a really high quality mattress, like the Sealy Posturepedic® Signature 11-Series innerspring mattress being given away on blogs like BizzieMommy.com. Visit the site and enter for your own chance to win, but I'm not going to wish you luck. This is one I need myself!

adidas Star Wars Celebration

2010-01-29T13:08:00.000-06:00

All I did was ask my husband if I could go to New York next week, and I sent him the copy about the event from StarWars.com. He re-edited the copy. His "improvements" are in bold.

The REAL story...

If you're in New York on February 4th, join adidas Originals and Foot Locker for an Imperial March to celebrate the launch of the adidas Originals Star Wars collection. Led by some pompous short guy from the 501st in platform shoes and a Rubie's Darth Vader costume, the march will begin at Foot Locker (43-45 W. 34th St.) at 9:30AM with a celebrity guest, most likely some asstard that appeared in the background in one of the prequels for half a second. Or Andy Dick. joining at the Times Square Foot Locker (1530 Broadway) at 10:00AM.

The first 50 customers to purchase a shoe at each location will receive a special Star Wars gift, being anally raped with a Hasbro lightsaber while on-lookers gasp and cry "You paid HOW MUCH for fricking shoes with Star Trek stickers on them?" Everyone will have the opportunity to get their photo taken with Star Wars characters, actually more of the self-loving losers from the 501st who are still savoring the smell of the smoke Lucas has blown up their asses while laughing at them for being a free PR machine for his empire. The March will continue south and culminate at the SoHo ('cause it sort of sounds like Solo, y'know from the movies) adidas Originals store (136 Wooster) at 11:00AM where the special celebrity guest will break wind whilst staggering around in a drunken stupor and hitting on the least fat female fans and then unveil the adidas Skywalker shoe , which will be available for purchase for the first time in the US. DJ Neil Armstrong will be on hand spinning for the crowd. By "spinning" we do mean break dancing. And at his age, once he hits the ground he likely to break every bone in his body. Or at least the ones that haven't been replaced with space bone by his alien overlords. Nerd.

Oh, and he nixed the trip to the Big Apple.

A Few Thoughts on "Avatar"

2010-01-19T22:28:00.000-06:00

Hubby and I saw "Avatar" on Sunday afternoon in 3D. It was playing to an almost full house, not completely sold out but quite a good crowd for the movie being out for several weeks already.

Beware of spoilers ahead!

We'd heard a lot about the story, and for us nothing that happened in the movie was very unexpected. Certain plot points were set-up well in advance, and maybe we're just old and jaded, but for example, as soon as they encountered the large orange dragon-like creature and told the story that only five leaders had even ridden one, we knew that Jake Sully would be the sixth. When they tried to save Grace by transferring her into her avatar, it was obvious that Jake would choose that option and it would work, because he was not so weak. Immediately after the film, Tim commented that Grace would become the Obi-Wan character, if Jim Cameron made a sequel, and since then, he read an article that said Sigourney Weaver would be back for the follow-up.

The computer effects were very good for the most part; there were only a few moments where I noticed poor CGI. Notably they are the shot where Neytiri reached out to grab Jake when he's first following her through the forest and nearly fell, and then later when the guys are all climbing the vines to get to the creatures that they're going to try to ride. It's like their biceps weren't flexing at all, so it seemed there was no effort to the climb. For only a couple of moments to jump out at me as being poorly animated in a movie with this much CGI, that's pretty good.

The 3D effect was very well done. I must say, I did not have any "reach out and grab" it moments in the theatre, which I have felt like doing at Disney World -- but
I think it's because the Disney 3D movies were designed and filmed to capitalize on the 3D effect, whereas Cameron was telling a story that just happens to be in 3D. I must also say that whenever a shot seemed to call particular attention to the 3D aspect of the film, it pulled me out of the moment. They missed a few opportunities to take advantage of the 3D, such as when Jake is first trying out his avatar and his tail is knocking things over. Something could have been knocked towards the
camera or the tail could have flicked by our faces; Tim believes Cameron chose not to do that, because it would have pulled the audience out of the moment and reminded them that they're watching a film.

The designs of the hardware were good, but also kind of disappointing because everything Cameron does features very similar machinery. We saw the hunter-killers from "The Terminator" and the power loader from "Aliens." Very early on,
I heard a clip of music that was probably right off the "Aliens" soundtrack, thus confirming for me that the hack James Horner did the music. Most of it was good and seemed original, although after becoming disillusioned with his work after hearing
so much of the "Star Trek II" & "STIII" music rehashed in "Aliens" I have not gone out of my way to listen to his music. For all I know the pieces that sounded like Native American flute music could have been rehashed Celtic music from "Titanic"
played on a different instrument. In the final fight between the Sarge (was he a Sergeant?) and Jake, ooh, surprise, the same "thrilling moment" music Horner used in both "Trek" films, and "Aliens" and "Clear and Present Danger" and "Krull" and everything else he's ever done. I suspect he probably used it in "Titanic" but it wasn't as recognizable being played on Celtic instruments. And Lord save me from the "hit single" that was played over the credits. That was painful.

Lest you think I didn't enjoy the movie, I was entertained, I cared about the characters, and I had a good time. It just wasn't as special as the $1.6 billion+ box office would suggest. If the plot were quite so simplistic and predictable, it could have been an excellent movie instead of mediocre. I suppose mediocrity doesn't really matter when you're getting butts in seats and winning all kinds of awards for the cleverness of getting butts in seats.

Before the film, they played several 3D trailers, which surprised me. I wasn't expecting that at all. "Alice in Wonderland" was one, plus "Shrek Forever," "Piranha 3D" (interesting choice, since Cameron directed "Piranha 2" when he was first starting out as a filmmaker), and something else about a supervillain and his young nemesis but I can't recall the name.

So, that's my review of "Avatar." It's not the best review the movie will get, nor is it the worst. Ultimately, it's making Cameron even richer, and I suppose that's all that really matters to Hollywood.

Oh, my aching back

2010-01-19T21:32:00.000-06:00

I'm tired all the time, but when I get the chance to sleep in, I wake up achy. I blame it on the mattress. We bought our mattresses at Koala Mattress in Pensacola probably seven or eight years ago. Very soon after we bought them, hubby heard some of the wood supports in his start to crack. It was under warranty, but it's a major headache getting the mattresses home, much less borrowing a truck to take it back to the store and doing without while it's being repaired. So, they've just continued to get worse. Funnily, we were looking at a mattress-in-a-box option at a local department store and talking with someone else who was looking and he said (with no prompting from us), "Don't waste your time with Koala Mattress." So, we are not alone in our bad experience.

Right now, I am pinning my hopes on winning a new mattress from Sealy Posturepedic. Sealy is giving away several of their new Sealy Posturepedic Innerspring Signature 11 Series mattresses through some of the popular blogs. The winners get to choose the size mattress they get.

Here are some links where you can enter:
Mommy Mandy
Bizzie Mommy
From Dates to Diapers

Hubby and I use two Twin XL mattresses on a Queen frame, and all our linens are Twin. If I win, clearly I'll have to choose Twin XL for the size, and hubby will be on his own, because I will claim the new mattress in the name of Spain (my birth country). If the mattress helps me sleep soundly enough, maybe even the tag team of Wicket and Kali will not be able to disturb my slumber. One can only hope.

The Power of the Pea

2010-01-01T18:35:00.000-06:00

I just ate my fourth bowl of black-eyed peas of the day and will be dipping in for more in a few minutes. You see, when I was a child my Pap-pa told me that for every black-eyed pea you eat on New Year's Day, you'll earn a dollar in the coming year. I figure that if the going rate was a dollar per pea in Pap-pa's day (when a dollar a day was a good, living wage), that the value has to have gone up by now. Eating a crock pot full of black-eyed peas, therefore, will ensure a very successful year.

So, how exactly does this work? Because it has seemed to work for me these past few years. I've won a good amount of cash and some valuable prizes. I think it works for me because I believe in the power of the pea.

A few days ago, I had lunch with a friend who's as avid a sweeper as I am and another old friend who saw our sweeping chat on Facebook and wanted in on the action. They've both read The Secret - the popular book about the Law of Attraction. I've never read the book, but I have seen a few minutes of the video online, and I've read about it. I was introduced to the concept some 20 years ago, by an actor friend who had read Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain. This friend told me that when she was looking for a new place to live, she imagined the perfect townhouse in the perfect neighborhood at a great location in the city, and she turned down a street and there it was, just as she had imagined, down to the color of the buildings and the layout of the rooms.

Ms. Gawain was not the first to write of this concept. On Wikipedia, you can read The Science of Getting Rich written by Wallace D. Wattles in 1910; he called the concept Thinking Substance.

Imagine what you want. Believe it will come to you, and it will. That's the Law of Attraction. Creative Visualization. Thinking Substance. The Power of Prayer.

I remember hearing a story long ago about a friend of a friend who was not well off financially, she may have been disabled, and she really wanted a piano. She prayed and prayed for delivery of a piano. When out of the blue things fell into place in such a way that she was offered a piano at no cost, she gave credit to God and prayer. My dad told me the story of helping their new preacher move into a parsonage house recently purchased by the church. Standing in the room designated for the preacher's youngest daughter, the church members offered to re-paint it. Not necessary, the preacher said, for his daughter had prayed that in their new house, her room would be pink and purple, and that's exactly what it was.

Gives you chills, doesn't it?

So when I eat my bowl of black-eyed peas, I'm believing in the goodness and prosperity they will bring me over the next 364 days. Perhaps a grand prize win of thousands of dollars cash. Maybe another trip to New York or L.A. In the past year, I've won a laptop computer, a jousting helmet, DVDs, free food coupons and gift cards, books, and all kinds of products.

I credit the peas of 01/01/2009.

As you go through 2010, believe in yourself, be steadfast in your dreams, and may the year bring you everything you desire.

My Entry For the Kia Sorento Ultimate Road Trip Sweepstakes

2009-12-20T11:37:00.000-06:00

In 1987, I decided I wanted to go to the official 10th Anniversary Star Wars convention in Los Angeles. It would be cheaper to drive than to fly, but it meant being on the road for at least 10 days by myself, age 21. My mom decided to go with me, and we turned it into a great adventure, nearly three weeks on the road. We stayed at really cheap motels (except in L.A. where we stayed at the conference hotel), and we stopped anywhere that looked interesting: national parks, state parks, tourist traps ("You don't want to miss THE THING, 25 miles ahead!"). We saw the Grand Canyon, and played the slots in Vegas. We visited the London Bridge, Hoover Dam, and photographed every cactus in Saguaro National Park. My parents and I had traveled a lot when I was growing up, but I didn't appreciate it like I did this time.

My husband's travel experiences have been far less interesting. His parents would drive across the state for a piece of pie, meaning hours crammed into the car with two other kids. His dad drove around town for work on the weekends, and carried the kids with him. These excursions were more boring and frustrating than anything. Nowadays, my husband just wants to get where he's going and get back, and usually time constraints mean that's what we have to do.

As unrealistic as it is, I would love to take my husband on a two- or three-week trip like the one I had with my mom. I think that if we weren't rushed, and if we stopped anywhere and everywhere that looked interesting, he would have a good time. No telling when we'll have the freedom and money to do that, but it's a dream that I will keep in my heart until the time comes.

Now, tell about your dream road trip at MomLogic for a chance to win big.

When a Child Drowns....

2009-12-16T23:11:00.000-06:00

It's very easy for everyone else who wasn't there to criticize and blame the parent or caregiver, the one who was "supposed to be watching." I have been and will continue to be critical of how many people parent (or don't parent) their children. In the Shellie Ross case, I think people are making some assumptions that I am not prepared to make.

I don't know how big Mrs. Ross's property is or where the chicken coop is in relation to the pool. 25 years ago, before cell phones and blogs and tweeting, the very same thing could have happened. Mom walks out to the chicken coop to check on them or gather eggs or feed them, the toddler walks away while she's doing her chore and falls into the pool.

I don't know if the critics have children. I don't. I have cats. I keep a pretty good eye on them when I'm at home, but yesterday, hubby and I were having dinner on the sofa, watching a show on TV, and Petra jumped up on the kitchen counter maybe 12 feet away (and behind a wall, but not behind a door). She pulled down a burrito that was cooling on the counter and started helping herself to the contents. Hubby walked in with his plate and caught her at it.

Do I think that a lot of parents could play closer attention to their children? Absolutely. Mrs. Ross probably tweets from a cell phone, an accessory some people consider as important as their heads. If you make or receive more than three cell phone calls on an average day, I think you're on the phone too much. I see people talking on phones while they drive, walk, bike, and use the toilet. They make and receive many personal calls or text messages at work. I recall hearing stories of children drowning in a pool or mop bucket or tub while their caregiver was on the phone. Doesn't even have to be a cell phone; the old landline variety can be blamed for some of those deaths. A landline phone ties you to the wall where the phone is plugged in.

Mrs. Ross had her cell phone with her and was outside with her son. She says he slipped away in two seconds. Maybe it was really 30 seconds or a minute or five minutes, but it wasn't long.

If you have ever turned your eyes away from a child in your care, what happened to Mrs. Ross could have happened to you, Twitter or no.

Bryson's death is a horrible tragedy for the Ross family. Mrs. Ross will live with this for the rest of her life. She will second guess her actions. She will question her choices on December 15, 2009, for as long as she lives. She doesn't need anyone else to do it for her. On that evening, her life was spinning and her heart was contracting in her chest and she turned to her friends for comfort. 25 years ago, she might have screamed for a neighbor. She might, even today, have called her mother or her sister or her best friend in order to ask for prayers, to express her grief and her horror and her fear. Instead, she texted. It's second nature to her. That brief message took just a few seconds and reached many people who Mrs. Ross considers to be her friends.

I don't know if her harshest critics follow her blog or her tweets or if they heard about that tweet second-hand. It sure didn't take them long to hop onto the internet to tell everyone in their circle of cyberfriends what they thought of the incident. It's kind of hypocritical, isn't it? To condemn someone for spending too much time on the internet in an online forum. To chastise someone you don't even know for not spending enough time with real people, from the computer in your house where you're presumably not talking with a real person because you're too busy typing. To do telephone interviews with magazines so you can get some attention from someone else's tragedy.

My dad died two years ago. It was an expected death from cancer, and my mom and my husband were there with me. When he passed, we each took turns on the phone calling the hospice worker, the funeral home, the church, and family. It wasn't long before I got online and sent some emails and posted on some forums. When you're hurting and grieving, you're in a daze, I'm sure even more so when it's sudden. You need to do something but there's nothing you can do. While the paramedics were working on her son, Mrs. Ross had to stand back, out of the way, and wait. She was restless and frightened and aching, so she tweeted. She asked people to pray for her son, because it's all she could do at that moment.

So cut her some slack.

It needed to be said.

2009-12-10T21:53:00.000-06:00

Do you know the difference between "right" and "write"? If not, you should watch this video by Chris Pirillo.

Remembering Pap-Pa

2009-11-23T21:23:00.000-06:00

My mom's brother, my Uncle Howitt, is in town for a couple of days, and I had dinner with him and my mom on Sunday and hubby joined us for dinner on Monday. We had great conversation about food and customer service and the legal system and how things have changed. He and mom recalled the outhouse they had when they were little, and even after they got indoor plumbing, as kids they'd use the outhouse to avoid catching their momma's eye, because she was likely to put them to work if she saw them.

He told the story of how a reporter from the paper was out visiting him one day, and Pap-pa (what I always called my grandfather) mentioned that they were in for a harsh winter. This was in 1976. The reporter asked how he could possibly know that. Pap-pa showed him the dog's coat and said if the fur doesn't thin out in the spring, it's going to be extra thick for a cold winter. He showed the reporter an anthill that was close to the ground. If it was going to be a mild winter, Pap-pa said, the anthill would be eight inches off the ground, but instead, the ants were digging deep, to be ready for a cold winter. The reporter took it all down and wrote a tongue-in-cheek article about this old country farmer's antiquated ideas about weather forecasting. Come October, though, and an early hard freeze or two and the reporter came back, to do a follow-up story about how accurate the old farmer's predictions had been.

Too often we forget or discount the old ways, but that ancient wisdom came from experience and from having to make do without the internet and live Doppler radar on the 10pm news.

What digital SLR should I get?

2009-11-10T21:54:00.001-06:00

My mom has indicated that she will buy me a digital SLR for Christmas. She's going to get the same make and model for herself, so I can figure it out and help her. I've read good things about Pentax, plus you can use 35mm Pentax camera lenses on their digital cameras (so I've heard) and we have some of those. Big benefit.

I have also heard some really good things about Nikon and Canon models.

What do you think?

Banner Ads can be so misleading.

2009-11-09T17:08:00.000-06:00

I was on Facebook, and I should have known better. The ad showed a couple of small pink Tupperware containers and a pink ribbon and said that the free sample offer would be ending in 11 minutes. Mm-hm. And the next free sample offer will start in 11:01.

But I fell for it. I clicked. It took me to QualityHealth.com and asked for a little basic information, including mailing address, age, and general medical concerns. The next thing I knew, I was responding to page after page of "don't you want to buy a Nissan?" and "don't you want to get 180 health-related e-newsletters two or three times a week?" questions. Grrr. But I finished the survey (honestly, I'm afraid to stop, because what if I end up signed up for something because I specifically didn't say no). Did they say that my free samples would be in the mail? Did they even mention what free samples I would receive? Of course not.

So, I hunt around and look for a way to contact the company, and when I find the form, what options do I see listed in the drop-down menu for subject? Stuff like "Complaints" and "Advertised Offer Not Available" and "Samples Not Received." A little further digging finds that this site (and other sites targeting people looking for information on specific diseases and conditions) is run by Marketing Technology Solutions." Based on their own corporate website, linked-in page, and a press release about a lawsuit they recently filed against a rival, MTS seems to be in business to put ads in front of people seeking medical information and to "generate leads" -- in other words, collect personal information from people so that pharmaceutical companies (and apparently other businesses like Nissan) can try to sell them stuff.

Now, I know there's no such thing as a free lunch, except that the reason you're giving me the free lunch is in hopes that I'll want the same thing for lunch tomorrow and I'll be willing to pay for it. Luring me into the restaurant, having me fill out a bunch of surveys, then sending me away hungry is not the way to win my trust or my business. All I'm asking for is a little honesty in advertising.

Marketing Technology Solutions should be ashamed of themselves, but they seem to have come up with a scheme that brings them in a lot of money from medical companies and that's all that matters to them. Same for Facebook. They ought to ban misleading ads, but they're in it for the money, too.

Enter to win a Kindle

2009-11-06T13:45:00.000-06:00

Click here to enter at Noobie.com.

I would love to have a Kindle, because I would like to read some books that are only available as ebooks, and I would like to carry the complete works of Shakespeare and some reference books with me all the time.

The Soggy Book

2009-10-24T22:49:00.000-05:00

Over the summer, I won a book called Counting the Cost. It's a depression- era love story, inspired by real-life events recounted by author Liz Adair's family members. A couple of weeks ago, the book arrived in the daily post. It was soaked.

A wet book is a ruined book, and as we have not had any satisfaction from the local postmaster, the branch manager, or our carrier on those few occasions in the past when we've had a serious issue with mail delivery, I didn't bother with them.

Going back a few months, when the USPS was talking about cutting back to 5-day-a-week delivery and raising postage rates again, I sent a letter through the USPS.gov website. I pointed out the damage that one of our carriers did to a package by jamming it into a too-small mailbox instead of driving down the 600' driveway to deliver it (we were home at the time) or leaving a slip. The branch manager told us the package should have been insured if it was important. The carrier said, if it's important, use FedEx or UPS. Seriously.

I got an email back asking for some very specific details, which have been forgotten over time. This was more than five years ago, before we moved to our current house.

I went back to that e-mail and hit reply. I explained that I'd just received this book, and it was soaked through, meaning it did more than get wet from the mail truck to my mailbox. The box itself was closed; the doors (front and back on this model) were up tight.

I received an email back asking for specific information about the date of delivery, where it was mailed from, and a few other questions. They were not responsible for compensation, but they would investigate.

I answered their questions and hit send, and I got an automated response that said, basically, I was sending it to the wrong place, the address had changed, yadda yadda. Long story short, I ended up copying the Postmaster General of the U.S. with my final report.

A couple of days later, I get a call from my local postmaster, the same person who, when we tried to call him about a previous problem a few years early, said we needed to talk to the branch manager without even listening to our complaint (which involved the branch manager's attitude). This time, he was really apologetic. He was going to go to my house and look at my mailbox and talk to my carrier and find out what happened. Wow!

An hour or so later, he called again. Said the carrier told him the package was wet when it got to Pensacola, and because he didn't follow procedure and package it up with a note explaining what happened, he was going to reimburse me for the price of the book.

At the same time, the Ms. Adair's PR lady had kindly offered to send me another copy of the book, which arrived about 10 days later (I was beginning to wonder if my carrier was taking revenge) and it was in great shape. I have offered to pay for the book, since the Post Office came through, and I'm waiting to see how to make out the check and where to mail it.

I know that the post office handles a whole lot of mail without any problems or damage. I know that accidents can happen. I do wonder what befell that first package. Did it fall into a puddle? Was there a leak in one of the mail trucks en route? How long did it sit in water? If it fell into a puddle, as long as it was retrieved quickly and wiped off, it wouldn't have been ruined. As you can see from the photo, the package was torn in several places -- did that happen before or after it was exposed to the water? Was it really nobody's fault, or was someone having a bad day and when the book fell into the water said, "Screw it, someone else'll pick it up." The Postal Service uses plastic tubs to sort and carry the mail; if water got into one of those tubs, either being carried through a downpour or because of a leak in the truck or some other reason, the mail in that tub would just sit and soak until it was re-sorted or delivered.

It's up to every person in the chain to be alert and considerate to ensure the safe delivery of the mail. I thank the outstanding men and women of the U.S. Postal Service who give their all to make sure the mail gets through. To those who think their job is not important, that they don't get paid enough to care, I hope you find a new job really soon, something that really isn't important or meaningful to anyone, because we'll all be better off without you.

Something I Don't Get About Google Alerts

2009-09-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

Google Alerts is supposed to be a great tool, and I have a really unusual name so it should be easy. The thing is, I get the same page, the same mention of my name, fairly regularly. One of the few other Auriette's in the world is a racehorse. She was racing '96-'98, from what I can tell. These same old articles keep showing up in my Google Alerts. I'm alerted about some of my tweets. Today I got an alert about a comment I made on another person's blog three weeks ago. I don't receive alerts about most of the blog prizes that I win, which are often posted on the giveaway blog. I signed up for Google Alerts to try to help me find out about wins, just in case the sponsor doesn't notify me directly or the e-mail gets lost. Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem to work that well.

New Salad Dressing is Coming

2009-09-25T08:59:00.000-05:00

I have this morning off work, so I was at home during business hours, and I called the number on the O'Charley's Honey Mustard again. Now, the name on the bottle is Donelson Foods. I couldn't understand what the phone system said the company's name was, so when I reached a person, I asked if this was also Donelson Foods. She mentioned the O'Charley's Dressing and asked if I wanted HR. I explained I had a bad bottle of the dressing and she transferred me. That person (I didn't make a note of her name) mentioned clearly Choice Food and Diversity Food. I left a detailed message, then I started looking around. Apparently, what the phone system says is Vietti Foods. I guess they still make some foods under that umbrella, but then I found a press release that referenced "Choice Food of America formerly Vietti Foods" and how they were teaming up to form Diversity Food to reach the multicultural market. I was going to follow up with an e-mail to someone, if I could figure out their email address protocol, when the phone rang. The woman apologized, told me the person who handles these things is out of the office until Monday, but there's been another complaint about products with the 13Oct09 date stamp, so they would send me a replacement two-pack next week. She gave me a direct-line phone number to call if I don't receive it in the next couple of weeks.

I knew something had to be wrong with it, and I didn't let it go. I was polite on my message, but I also mentioned that I'd left a message before and never heard anything, and that I really hoped someone would call me back this time. Maybe the message didn't save correctly, or the person I left the message for has been out of town all this time. With voice mail, you never can tell. The person today seemed genuinely apologetic that no one had called me back. It pays to be persistent.

Why do places not return calls?

2009-09-25T00:33:00.000-05:00

We bought this O'Charley's Honey Mustard dressing, made by a place called Donelson Foods, and it turned out we still had another bottle (we get them in 2-packs at Sam's Club), so it was sitting around for a while, but the expiration is not until October and the stuff we just finished was good until June according to the label, and it was still fine. So, it looked really dark and separated, the new stuff, and I shook it up and I poured some out, and it was really runny and looked nasty. I keep forgetting to take the bottle to work with me to call, so I called one evening, and they were closed, but they said I could leave a message, so I did. No one called me back and I'm really irritated about that.

HP is addictive.

2009-09-05T10:36:00.000-05:00

HP is giving away a really nice laptop and a mini. And an awesome Timbuk2 bag to carry them in. I have an HP desktop that I love, and you know what? The DV6 Laptop they're giving away in a series of back-to-school blog contests is even more powerful. More RAM. Slightly bigger hard drive. Plus a Blu-ray player, which I don't even own one yet, so that would be a really nice added feature.

The mini is tiny, but it would be perfect to carry in my purse (I'd have to clean it out of course) for comparison shopping while we're on the go. Don't you hate it when you're out and you see something and you wonder if it's really a good deal. What do the other stores have? Are there any sales? Pop into the nearest hotspot and you have your answers.

Head over to Daddy Forever right now for your chance(s) to win. You can enter up to four times using different methods. This blog I'm writing? This is one of my four entries.

There are a few more days in this ongoing HP promotion, and you can find more participating blogs and details about the prizes at HP's Back to School site.

Yes, I know I just blogged that I won an Acer laptop. Am I greedy? Maybe... But hubby's parents don't have a computer at all, so if I win this very sweet HP package, I will choose one of the smaller computers to send up to them so they can have e-mail. I think that if they ever used the email, they would enjoy being able to communicate with family members who don't live close by.

Think about your own reasons to win and start visiting Daddy Forever and the other participating sites for your chance.

Finally!

2009-09-05T09:41:00.000-05:00

I won a laptop! Thanks to Deal Seeking Mom and the fine folks at Acer, I will be receiving an Acer Aspire Timeline. It sounds great! Only 3.5 pounds, about an inch thick, and 8+ hours of battery life. From what I can tell, the processing speed is only moderately slower than our desktop, and the Acer has more RAM. It's got a 13.3" screen, which is a little larger than most netbooks. The 80gb hard drive is small, but external drives are not that expensive if I find I need more space. What I mainly want it for is checking email & entering sweepstakes online and for word processing (will I finally finish that novel?).

I got the notification on Thursday and Deal Seeking Mom confirmed receipt of my shipping and contact information on Friday. I'm hoping Acer will be able to ship next week, so I'll have it in time for my road trip on the 18th. I'm driving my mom to Indiana and flying back. It's going to be incredibly awesome to have a laptop for the trip!

That reminds me, I should start looking for wifi hotspots at the Indianapolis airport!

The Spirit of Cooperation

2009-08-18T20:42:00.000-05:00

So, over at StudySuccessful.com, they're giving away some HP computers. Regular readers will know that I'm obsessed with trying to win a laptop or netbook, and here's my chance to win both and shut up about it.

For my chance to win, StudySuccessful wants to hear about a great cooperative experience in my academic career and something that went terribly wrong. Many of my experiences working with people in school went pretty well (except for the evil girls in middle school science, but there's nothing positive in that story). The best example for the purposes of this story was "Of Thee I Sing." That's a musical that the University of West Florida theatre department put on in the fall of 1984. I had a couple of lines and the rest of the time I was in the chorus. The "star" of the show was Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, but he only rehearsed with us the last week or so. But I digress. The great spirit of cooperation was within the cast. A lot of us were in theatre classes together. This was about the third show I'd ever done in my life (not counting the Christmas play in elementary school where my big part was ripping off bits of fake fiber snow and throwing snowballs), so it was all very new to me. The director was kind of crazy or at least forgetful; I remember one of the actors standing up to him when the director was yelling at us for not doing what he wanted because he had changed his mind and forgot to tell us. During rehearsals my friend Michelle gave me a great piece of advice. She said, "No matter what happens, just keep smiling," a piece of advice that I had to use on this particular show, because something did go terribly wrong.

I had a quick change backstage, and somehow the button on my sleeve got caught in a hairpin or something, and it took me a minute to extricate myself and pull my clothes on. By that time, the dance number had started and I wasn't in place. All the guys had partners except Bob the actor, who left dancing alone and wondering where I was. Michelle was backstage (she wasn't in this number) and I whispered, "What do I do?"

"Get out there and keep smiling!"

So, I put on a big smile and sashayed across the stage and joined the dance. I wonder sometimes if the audience knew what had happened or if they thought it was just part of the number.

Working on a big musical like that is a great experience in teamwork. Everyone relies on everyone else doing what they are supposed to do, being in the right place at the right time, for everything to go smoothly. When something goes wrong, you have to help each other out to get things back on track. To work together successfully on any project, you have to fulfill your duties, and when something goes wrong, you can't just point the finger at someone else, you have to step up with help or solutions or just part of the problem.