Kitchen Sink

People, I spend so much time surfing the tubes and stuff that I'm not getting much writing done. Something has to give. So, I've decided to post a bloggie of my own and catch up on your bloggies once a week.



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Here's another gem from Russell's Teapot:




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This just in from Richard Dawkins:

"Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India's most "powerful" tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment. After all his chanting of mantra (magic words) and ceremonies of tantra failed, the tantrik decided to kill Sanal Edamaruku with the "ultimate destruction ceremony" on live TV. Sanal Edamaruku agreed and sat in the altar of the black magic ritual. India TV observed skyrocketing viewership rates.

"Everything started, when Uma Bharati (former chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh) accused her political opponents in a public statement of using tantrik powers to inflict damage upon her. In fact, within a few days, the unlucky lady had lost her favorite uncle, hit the door of her car against her head and found her legs covered with wounds and blisters.

"India TV, one of India's major Hindi channels with national outreach, invited Sanal Edamaruku for a discussion on "Tantrik power versus Science". Pandit Surinder Sharma, who claims to be the tantrik of top politicians and is well known from his TV shows, represented the other side. During the discussion, the tantrik showed a small human shape of wheat flour dough, laid a thread around it like a noose and tightened it. He claimed that he was able to kill any person he wanted within three minutes by using black magic. Sanal challenged him to try and kill him.

"The tantrik tried. He chanted his mantras (magic words): "Om lingalingalinalinga, kilikili…." But his efforts did not show any impact on Sanal – not after three minutes, and not after five. The time was extended and extended again. The original discussion program should have ended here, but the "breaking news" of the ongoing great tantra challenge was overrunning all program schedules.

"Now the tantrik changed his technique. He started sprinkling water on Sanal and brandishing a knife in front of him. Sometimes he moved the blade all over his body. Sanal did not flinch. Then he touched Sanal's head with his hand, rubbing and rumpling up his hair, pressing his forehead, laying his hand over his eyes, pressing his fingers against his temples. When he pressed harder and harder, Sanal reminded him that he was supposed to use black magic only, not forceful attacks to bring him down. The tantrik took a new run: water, knife, fingers, mantras. But Sanal kept looking very healthy and even amused.

"After nearly two hours, the anchor declared the tantrik's failure. The tantrik, unwilling to admit defeat, tried the excuse that a very strong god whom Sanal might be worshipping obviously protected him. "No, I am an atheist," said Sanal Edamaruku. Finally, the disgraced tantrik tried to save his face by claiming that there was a never-failing special black magic for ultimate destruction, which could, however, only been done at night. Bad luck again, he did not get away with this, but was challenged to prove his claim this very night in another "breaking news" live program.

"During the next three hours, India TV ran announcements for The Great Tantra Challenge that called several hundred million people to their TV sets.

"The encounter took place under the open night sky. The tantrik and his two assistants were kindling a fire and staring into the flames. Sanal was in good humour. Once the ultimate magic was invoked, there wouldn't be any way back, the tantrik warned. Within two minutes, Sanal would get crazy, and one minute later he would scream in pain and die. Didn't he want to save his life before it was too late? Sanal laughed, and the countdown begun. The tantriks chanted their "Om lingalingalingalinga, kilikilikili…." followed by ever changing cascades of strange words and sounds. The speed increased hysterically. They threw all kinds of magic ingredients into the flames that produced changing colours, crackling and fizzling sounds and white smoke. While chanting, the tantrik came close to Sanal, moved his hands in front of him and touched him, but was called back by the anchor. After the earlier covert attempts of the tantrik to use force against Sanal, he was warned to keep distance and avoid touching Sanal. But the tantrik "forgot" this rule again and again.

"Now the tantrik wrote Sanal's name on a sheet of paper, tore it into small pieces, dipped them into a pot with boiling butter oil and threw them dramatically into the flames. Nothing happened. Singing and singing, he sprinkled water on Sanal, mopped a bunch of peacock feathers over his head, threw mustard seed into the fire and other outlandish things more. Sanal smiled, nothing happened, and time was running out. Only seven more minutes before midnight, the tantrik decided to use his ultimate weapon: the clod of wheat flour dough. He kneaded it and powdered it with mysterious ingredients, then asked Sanal to touch it. Sanal did so, and the grand magic finale begun. The tantrik pierced blunt nails on the dough, then cut it wildly with a knife and threw them into the fire. That moment, Sanal should have broken down. But he did not. He laughed. Forty more seconds, counted the anchor, twenty, ten, five… it's over!


"Millions of people must have uttered a sigh of relief in front their TVs. Sanal was very much alive. Tantra power had miserably failed. Tantriks are creating such a scaring atmosphere that even people, who know that black magic has no base, can just break down out of fear, commented a scientist during the program. It needs enormous courage and confidence to challenge them by actually putting one's life at risk, he said. By doing so, Sanal Edamaruku has broken the spell, and has taken away much of the fear of those who witnessed his triumph.

"In this night, one of the most dangerous and wide spread superstitions in India suffered a severe blow.

"The whole program is video-recorded and is available. If you want a copy, please contact: info_desk@rationalistinternational.net"

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And finally, this is for Randal:


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I'll be back too - next week!
((((HUGS))))

Kitchen Sink

Well this is interesting...

Meet the (White) Man Who Inspired Rev. Wright's Sermon


People kept saying that Wright's comments were taken out of context and that we should look at the whole piece. I never did because, I mean, how "out of context" can "God damn America" be? I was (and still am) proud of my chosen candidate for denouncing (and rejecting) Wright's comments. Now we learn from this article in The Huffington Post (not, of course, from the MSM) that Rev. Wright was speaking, in amazement, about the fact that a white man had expressed these ideas, and on Faux News, no less. Rev. Wright ain't off the hook IMO, but now I can better understand why he made those comments.

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Here's an article that looks ahead to the election:

Beyond CheneyBush:
A Realistic (Cynical?) View of Change

by Bernard Weiner

It was written on February 19th, so I think the author was rather prophetic in predicting the current Obama-Clinton mud fight.

The danger for the Democrats is that Clinton and Obama, desperate for victory, will savage each other in such ways as to provide an enormous amount of political ammunition for McCain and the Republicans in both the presidential and congressional contests.

Mr. Weiner speculates that the GOP has already given up on 2008 and is looking ahead at 2012, hoping to regain power by blaming the mess we're in on the likely coming Democratic administration.

I think it's safe to say that whomever gets into power would be inheriting a huge, tangled mess, one of the worst in American political history. Part of that mess derives from the near-total ineptitude of the current Administration, but much of it is planned chaos designed to mess up the social/political/economic system so badly as to hamstring the incoming president from being able to do much corrective or creative restoration of good government. The GOP hope is that the public will then take out their frustrations on the Democrats in power rather than on those who originally created the gawdawful situation domestically and in Iraq and probably Iran as well.

The author points out that we progressives have an opportunity for real change.

I'd be overjoyed to be proven wrong by a Democratic president and Congress willing to take the bold progressive moves that the country so desperately needs and, in many ways, wants. If the Democrats were to capture unstoppable majorities in both houses of Congress, along with the presidency, that might even be possible.

I'd be overjoyed, too. If we don't stay involved in politics over the next four years (and beyond), we will never get our country back. We have to demand that the new administration keeps its promises. (In the case of Sen. Obama, if he becomes our president, I expect him to restore habeas corpus, as he promised. That's at a minimum, because of course there's a lot of Constitutional damage to repair. Since he taught Constitutional Law at Harvard, I expect him to know what he's doing in that regard.)

Mr. Weiner says it best:

Of course, all of us must work our asses off in trying to do more that just settle for what we can get. After eight years of CheneyBush, there are opportunities there for strong, positive leadership as well as plenty of sinkholes of inevitable despair.

So, what we're talking about here is to use the next four years to govern aggressively, yes. But also to educate and train and work for increasing the power and backbone of ordinary citizens and progressive/liberal candidates and office-holders. In addition, wealthy Democratic individuals must step forward to support and help establish the progressive superstructure of honest media, more liberal think tanks, grassroots activist training, solvent internet bloggers, and so on, to help the "restoration" take root and grow. All this will take infinite patience and unflinching determination.

If we had forgotten before CheneyBush, we've been sorely reminded (by their immoral war, moral and financial corruption, and desecration of the Constitution) that democracy has to be worked on day by day, fought for day by day, lest our apathy and acquiescence create an avenue for HardRightists to return to power, which could mean leading this country into even more domestic and foreign-policy disasters.

Politics is indeed a contact sport, and, without ceding the moral high ground by crass imitation of our ideological enemies, we'd better learn how to sharpen our elbows and get in there and play it.

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Finally, I'm thrilled that Gov. Richardson endorsed Sen. Obama yesterday! An Obama/Richardson ticket could be unstoppable.

Kitchen Sink

I've added a link on my sidebar to Sen. Obama's fact-checker site. If any of you Obama supporters want to put one on your blog, email me for the code (unless you just want to make one of your own.) There's a link to my email on the Profile page.


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Today's the day for the (alleged) closing on Maxwell House! ASSuming the fat lady sings, by late this afternoon Tomcat and I will be renters here at Maxwell House until we move to an apartment by the end of February. Maxwell House was left to me by my ex-husband, Max. We were married for three years, divorced in 1971, but remained friends all the years until his death in 2004. Tomcat and I married in 1986, and Max and Tom truly enjoyed being husbands-in-law. Max had a stroke three years before he died. We tried to help him run the house (it's chopped up into five apartments; Max lived upstairs) and take him to the grocery store and doctor, etc. I'll never forget the time Tom rigged up a pulley for Max on the second-floor back porch. That way, instead of carrying anything up or down the stairs, Max could put the item(s) in a basket and use the pulley. Isn't that something? I have some mixed feelings about leaving this place, but it's 95 years old and needs a lot of work. So we're moving on.

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Finally, I don't know about you, but I am so sick of "reality" shows! Did anyone watch that new one last night, The Moment of Truth? I was torn between wanting to see what it was like, and wanting to boycott it at the time time. It was one of those things like watching a train wreck - you don't want to look, but you can't look away. It was brutal. I think the first guy lost his marriage and possibly his livelihood, not to mention the money, when it was over. His marriage because he confessed to delaying a decision to have children because he's not sure his wife is the right one to be his life partner, and his livelihood because he's a personal trainer, and he lied about occasionally touching female clients more than absolutely necessary. After the lie, a contestant is disqualified and loses all the money he was playing for. In the personal trainer's case, he was at the $100,000 level. I don't think I'll watch it again because the delay in announcing whether a response is "true" or "false" is annoying - they stretch it out so long that it's just silly and irritating.

I can't wait for the return of Lost! Here is a fabulous link to LostPedia. You could spend DAYS there, there's so much information to read. You can even post your own theories on the site. I hope the writers' strike is resolved (damn those producers!) in time to finish up the series before I 'splode.

Kitchen Sink

Ooh! Tomcat's parents gave us iPods for Christmas! The first thing I downloaded? LIVE AT LEEDS, Deluxe Edition. Best live album ever. Definitive My Generation. Serious Magic Bus. Shakin' All Over. Young Man Blues. Raw, pure, back when Keith Moon and John "Thunderfingers" Entwhistle were still alive. Great banter between Pete and Keith. Deluxe edition includes the "new" rock opera, Tommy. Best ever "Sparks."

Check it out, here , also here (for a bit about the follow-up Live at Leeds II).

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A man ahead of his time: J. Edgar (Who needs habeas corpus?) Hoover, who wanted to round up 12,000 Americans shortly after the Korean War began.
Check it out, here.


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From the Fundies Say the Darndest Things department, we learn:

There are four main religions in this country that are engaged in a holy war against Christianity. The number one religion, The Abortion Charismatics.The abortion religion in truth has as its foundation the worshipping of anti-submission to men. These death Stalinists use accusations of oppression as their guardian while marching on, putting the sword to the enemy, the trespassing fetus. Conversly, The Bible advises us to choose life and states that those who side with death are with the devil.

Religion number two, The Orthodox Homosexuals. The homosexual hit squad, they worship immoral sex and preach its acceptance with a formidable vigor. The religion of orgasms, just as long as you partake with someone of the same gender.

Religion number three, The Pentecostal Environmentalists. They worship myths and have as their god mother nature. This includes the global warming cash cow. They worship animals, the same animals God instructed us to subdue in Genesis. They worship the earth, the same earth God advises us in the Bible not to love due to the fact that it is fallen and ruled by Satan.

And the forth religion, The United Church of Envy. The religion of envy has as its decree welfare, social programs of all kinds, and higher taxes. It wishes to crucify anyone who is successful. The wealth of others is condemned. They fiercely seek conversion, not conversion of souls...conversion of other people?s money - to themselves. This faction is represented by Poverty Pastors from all status levels in society.

The Mega Church of Liberalism houses all these religions. They are extremely tolerant of any religion so long as its not that of the true God. Their enemy is not Satan as in Christianity, but their common enemy is in fact Christ. Hence the unity among the various religions.Their strategy is to incrementally replace Christianity with their false gods and religions of idolatry. At the same time they are attempting to diminish the credibility of God of the Bible and of Christianity.

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And finally, here's "my" Cranberry Chutney recipe, from Cooking Light Magazine:

Cranberry Chutney

Ingredients

1 cup chopped Granny Smith apple
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup chopped celery
3/4 cup water
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 (12-ounce) bag fresh or frozen cranberries

Preparation

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes or until slightly thick, stirring occasionally. Serve with turkey, chicken, roast pork, or ham.

Note: Refrigerate remaining chutney.

Yield

4 cups (serving size: 1/4 cup)

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Just wondering

Just wondering ...
(click links for the full story)

Why Joe Lieberman is such an asswipe.

What the hell happened to the Dallas Cowboys last night.
Tell me it wasn't because Jessica Simpson was there in her little pink No. 9 jersey.

Why someone would call themselves Christian and write to an atheist website saying they hope the recipients enjoy getting AIDS.
Do they not, like, have a brain in their head?

How the hell did Courtney make it to the final three on Survivor?
Did she have a brain in her head, after all?

Why someone posing as Santa would write nasty, obscene letters to little kids.

How can Saudi King Abdullah think he's merciful for pardoning the VICTIM of rape?
She won't have to serve the usual sentence for being raped, which is six months in jail and 200 lashes.

What are you wondering about today?
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Kitchen Sink

Ahem. Chapterhouse has been nominated for Best Blog About Stuff in the Bloggers' Choice Awards. We don't know what to say. Oh wait. Yes, we do.

Hot damn!

If you wish to vote and/or comment, please go here. We thank you very kindly.
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The writers' conference is this weekend, and for those of you dying to know which page I chose to submit, with your help, it's Sample #2, the one where Isoko and Koji are in the garden discussing the wife who's been selected for Koji.

Tonight is the hospitality costume party, and people will dress up as their favorite character from a children's book - either their own or someone else's. Tomcat and I are going as Isoko's aunt and uncle. I made kimono for both of us and ordered the zori and tabi (shoes and socks) on the Internets. I'll get some pics and post them for ya.
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Yesterday I went to the salon for an estimate. While there, I was subjected to the Maury Povitch show. You know how you might come upon a horrible accident and you want to turn away, but you can't? It was just like that, so I watched. The show's topic seemed to be, "Who's Your Daddy?" complete with a DNA reveal.

Three different women each had a daughter, and each claimed that one guy was the father. He denied it. Then Maury dramatically produces the results of the DNA test (May I have the envelop, please?) and The Truth is revealed. Yep, the guy is the daddy of all three little girls. One mother points to her derrière and says, "Kiss it, M-F-er" (at least, I think that's what she said - not only was the sound bleeped, but everyone's mouths were pixelated - that happened a lot.) Then the show's director, I presume, ordered the crew to try to get a shot of daddy holding all three girls. He could only hold two, but it was touching nonetheless.

Another woman claims her daughter was fathered by an ex, um, liaison, but nope, he's not the daddy. This guy jumps up and starts laughing and pointing at the woman, then proceeds to hop around the stage shimmying his shoulders in a celebratory dance, during which the woman and the guy's current liaison have a pixelated discussion.

The heartbreaker was the 10th grader who wanted to find out which of two boys was the father of her child. Neither was.

What in the name of all gods and goddesses are these people doing having unprotected sex? More importantly, what about the children in all this? They were brought out for show. Their pictures were shown on a large screen, side-by-side with the alleged fathers prior to the reveal, so audience members could see if there was a resemblance. I watched all this, yes I did, and wondered what we have come to, that this is afternoon entertainment.
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Speaking of entertainment, a couple of nights ago I went to a Loreena McKennitt concert on her An Ancient Muse Tour. It was a thing of beauty, people. She had nine musicians, including a man who played the hurdy gurdy. There was also a sexpot cellist, and this, my friends, is almost certainly the first time in the history of the English language that those two words have ever been written together. Sexpot cellist. Yes, she was - long blond hair, charismas busting out of a tight black top, black stockings and stilettos. But I digress. Loreena herself plays the harp, piano, and accordian, plus of course, she sings divinely. The violinist was spectacularly talented. The percussion section rocked. The audience was filled with aging hippies. I thought of it as the anti-Meyerson (the Dallas Symphony Centre is called "the Meyerson" after a former mayor, and former friend of H. Ross Perot, who funded the hall on the condition that it be named after his friend. They're no longer friends, I hear, so there ya go - be careful who you name a multi-million dollar facility for.) Anyway, the whole experience was wonderful.

After all this Celtic music, I was in the mood to read more Diana Gabaldon, but does she have a new Outlander book coming out? No she does not. She's torturing us by taking time out to write other books outside the series. The nerve. J.K. Rowling got her series finished, so what's the problem, Diana? What if you get run over by a bus? What are we supposed to do then, huh? So anyway, I decided to reread the whole series while waiting for her to get her act together. (Jeebus, I hope she never Googles and finds this post. If so, Diana: you know I adore you, right? I'm just kidding. Really.)

Any Outlander fans out there who want to commiserate?
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Well, that's it from Chapterhouse today. I'll get back with you prolly early next week, with pics.

Rock on.

Kitchen Sink

Thrills and chills


If you're hesitating to buy the CD because you don't care for opera, don't worry, because it doesn't matter. I'm not an opera fan, either, but like thousands of other fans have discovered, this guy's voice will send chills up your spine. He could sing the phone book and still enthrall you. I mean, here's this bloke, this bloke from Wales who worked for a cell phone company, was a cancer survivor and in debt up to his vocal cords, and now he's an international star with a world tour coming up.

Besides Nessun dorma, which you've probably already heard him sing on YouTube, the CD has Everybody Hurts - in Italiano! - and a fantastic rendition of Music of the Night. Some parts are way over-produced (shades of Phil Specter, there), but that's (sort of) understandable considering that Simon Cowell rushed to get it released. It's topped the charts in the U.K., Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark - okay, let's just say all those other places, months before it was released here, where it is now No. 1 on Amazon's Classical and Opera & Vocal lists, and No. 5 on the Pop Rock list.

You will love this CD.
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The Society of Children's Books Writers & Illustrators meeting I attended over the weekend was inspiring, as usual. At every meeting, they have "brag time," which is where people who have had recent successes - meaning in the month since the last meeting - stand up and tell us all about it. I am in awe. Every month we hear about new books coming out, new contracts having been signed, awards won, and so on. Those of us who are unpublished just sit there with our mouths open. I found out that one lady, who is putting together the annual conference next month, has written 76 books, and some of them have been made into movies.

I also found out that they sent the first chapter of my YA novel, The Earthquake Doll, to a NY editor for critique (in other words, I was one of the first ten people to get the chapter out in time!) I won't have her critique until the conference, in mid-October. I have visions (some would say "delusions") of her liking the chapter so much that she will ask me to send her the full MS, and/or will know of someone who will want to see it. That's why I'm working so hard to get it (re) edited. Even if that bubble is burst, I'll at least have a polished MS to send out to ... someone ... next month. Well, first I'll have to send out the query letters to see if anyone wants to see the whole thing - this is called the query-go-round. Anyway, please wish me luck.

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In the meantime, I'm one of several online people critiquing a novel written by an extremely talented young woman in SCBWI . I got to meet her for the second time over the weekend. When we saw each other this time, we hugged, and she and I both said, at the same time, "I just love you!" Awww... This gal will have no problem getting published one day. I'm sure of it.

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For any LOTR fans, here's a great clip I recently Stumbled - let's call it "Advice from Boromir." Enjoy!

Kitchen Sink

Some random stuff:

I can't believe it. Apparently, the judge has just refused bail for Mychal Bell, one of the Jena Six.

Story here.

Copyright AP.
ENA, La. - A relative of one of the Jena Six says a judge has denied bail for Mychal Bell, the only one of the teens who is jailed in the beating of a white classmate.
ADVERTISEMENT

Attorneys would not comment because juvenile court proceedings are secret. But the father of one of Bell's co-defendants said Bell's bail request was rejected. Bell's mother left the courthouse in tears and refused to comment.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information.

There simply must be a federal investigation of this. You can sign the petition here.

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Scruffybutt takes me walkies every day. It's occurred to me before while watching her walk along, sniffing the ground, sometimes pausing to get a better sniff, that what she is doing, in effect, is surfing the net. Well, today I realized that when she lifts her leg to squirt on a spot, she's bookmarking it. Yeah. It's like her bookmark. (And yes, she does actually lift her leg to pee. That's just one reason we call her the Holy Terrier. She's very alpha.) Hmm. I suppose my job on these walkies, then, is to clear her cache... and take it away in a little bag. I'll be damned.

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While at the store today, I needed some help selecting some cosmetics. The cosmetics lady was busy, however. That's because she and the in-house cop were flirting with each other. I was torn between interrupting them to ask for help or just letting the two alone. You know, in case it was Real Love in the Making and I might have upset some delicate cosmic, universal space-time matchmaking thingy. Because he could have, you know, been almost to the point where he would ask her out, and she would accept, and they would date for a while and then get married, and the little girl he was telling her about - the one he was trying to raise all by himself - would finally have a mommy, and then maybe even a little sister or brother on down the road, and the cosmetics lady might quit her job and become a stay-at-home mom, or heck, the cop might quit his, I mean, this is 2007, right? it could happen, only none of it would happen if I interrupted them and asked for help, so I didn't.

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I felt bad about Chicken being voted off Survivor: China last night. He was a woodsman from Virginia, and yes, he was the oldest, but the kids just didn't seem to get that he might know a thing or two about how to BUILD A FUCKING SHELTER! OTOH, I'm glad it wasn't the wrestler because I think she's gonna be a contendah. I loved P.G., but they're gonna get rid of her next, I think. She has a strong work ethic, and besides, she's of Chinese heritage and she was one of the few in the whole group - both tribes included - who seemed to appreciate the fact that they were in China.

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Please scroll down a bit and let me know about any conspiracy theories you think are credible, okay? Thanks. Have a great weekend, everyone.

I don't know about you, but I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that Melinda was voted off American Idol last night. Week after week, she blew the competition away. Her gorgeous voice, her power, her versatility, her sheer damn talent, and she's voted out? It ain't right.

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I have my smelling salts ready because this week at Maxwell House, I'm taking estimates on rewiring this whole place. It's a hundred-year-old house, and some of the wiring is (yikes!) original. (The last time we had an electrician out here, he took pictures with his cell phone to show his boss.)

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I was visiting Hoss's b**g today and he was talking about being a bird freak. I am, too. Birds love to talk to each other, and our remaining lovebird, Lisa, chirps away whenever she hears another bird. Or something that she thinks is a bird. Like the beeps from the microwave, timers, answering machines ... She also loves music, especially Pink Floyd and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Rolling Stones? Not so much.

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When you were little, did you have picture books? I can't remember anything like that from my childhood, although sometimes my father would make up stories for me about twins named Millie and Tillie. Anyway, did you have a favorite character? I got to thinking about this because I'll be going to a costume party later in the year for a children's book writers group I belong to. We're supposed to dress up as a favorite book character. I just can't think of any!

Kitchen Sink

****UPDATE****BREAKING NEWS****
Scruffybutt started a new blog - check it out.
****UPDATE****BREAKING NEWS****

I'm starting a new category, called Kitchen Sink, which I stole borrowed from Lavender because I'm lazy today's post is about a bunch of unrelated things.

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Pooks' class was canceled this morning because she's under the weather, and so are a couple of others. So, here I sits, all dressed up, and ... that's when I thought of you! Speaking of dressed up, Tomcat and I went to a banquet Saturday night, and the new picture over there in my Profile is from that.

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Another change: Scruffybutt's blog is no more. She's just too busy running the house and doing dog things to keep up with her blog. She may start a new one over on Wordpress or someplace like that. Blogger, which is now Google-ized, would not let me have two blogs with two different Profiles, so her blog had my picture and my profile on it. She was very upset, and between you and me, I think that's the real reason she stopped posting.

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I went to a (free!) seminar on webpage design, sponsored by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) a while back. Grace, the artist, who is also a member, went with me, and she said the seminar was better than the ($$) course she took at SMU! Grace, the artist, will have no trouble setting up her own webpage because she has Mac. I, however ...

Yesterday I pulled out the materials and started mucking around on the internets to see if I could possibly design my own webpage. Stop laughing!

After I got over that silly notion, I thought I'd look for a free template. There are tons of them out there. I found one that I loved, loved, loved, so I downloaded it. Then, it wouldn't open because I don't have the right software on my computer to open it with. Was there a way I could have known that before I downloaded the dang thing? I checked out the price of the software, and it was over $600!

Finally, reality sinking in, I decided to try using one of the icky templates that come with my web host (yes, I actually did figure out how to get one of those and register my domain.) I don't understand, at all, why it won't do stuff it says it will do. For example, if I want to have a picture on the right side of the template, and there's an option to put it on the right side, why then for the love of god does the picture stay on the left, and I can't move it no matter what I do?

Why am I doing this to myself? Because, if you're a writer and/or illustrator, you just really need to have your own website, that's why.

See, I have a plan. There's going to be an SCBWI conference in October, and I have that YA novel, The Earthquake Doll, sitting around here collecting dust. It really needs to be rewritten, but I put it off because one, that's a lot of work, and two, I was writing the murder mystery, Gino's Law. I'm going to put Gino's Law aside and let it percolate for a few months and work on the YA novel between now and October. That's where the webpage comes in, because I'd like to have that up and running by then, too.

After that, I'll pick up Gino's Law again and see how it wants to end.

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The male lovebird, Bart, died. That left us with just one - his sister, Lisa. I was surprised that she wasn't moping around after that. We decided to get her a companion, anyway, because I couldn't stand the thought of her being lonely. Well, it's a good thing we talked to an expert on the subject before we bought a bird. Did you know that lovebirds are color specific, meaning that they will have nothing to do with another lovebird without the same coloring as their parents (and themselves, of course?) I had already picked out a lovebird who was all by himself at the pet store, but his coloring was different. The bird lady told us that they would fight each other. Who knew that they discriminated like that? The lady suggested getting a mirror. So far, Lisa ignores the mirror completely. I think she's just being coy.

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I heard on CNN last night that during Friday and Saturday, meteorologists reported 125 tornadoes in the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, and Kansas. They said a normal two-day event at this time of year would produce around 50.

We had four small tornado touchdowns around here a few weeks ago, btw. One man was killed in Ft. Worth.

But back to the weekend - a tree across the street was hit by lightening. That's way too close, people. The wind tore up a shade and a gutter on the balcony of our house. The miracle is that it didn't bring down any branches on the humongous pecan tree in the back yard. I'm collecting estimates this week on having that tree trimmed - one huge branch is hanging over wires.

Stay safe, everyone.