Bloggers Speak Up - Please, Password Protect Children from X-Rated Content Sites

Once upon a time, I started blogging at a site my hubby set up for me (OhDawno.org). I moved here to Blogger because I wanted to leave a comment at Jill Miller Zimon's blog "Writes Like She Talks" and at the time, it was set up so only Blogger users could comment (she changed that right quick but I'd already set up this one).

I've been happy enough to keep my blog here since then, and it certainly gets more traffic than my old one did. Why do I mention this? Well it's my round about way to give credit to Jill for bringing me further into the blogosphere and provides the opportunity to segue into why I'm blogging today.

Jill was tagged on her blog to help perpetuate a movement by bloggers wishing to speak out against the easy access children have, sometimes even accidentally*, to pornography on the internet. It's from a group calling themselves Blogger Power and they're asking bloggers to help get the word out. The link above is from their "open letter to bloggers," the one below is to the main page on their site.

*Anyone who has accidently typed in whitehouse.com instead of .gov knows how easy that is.

The request from Blogger Power is simple and their cause is not an attempt to stop pornography on the internet or interfere with an adult's rights. Simply put it's :

"Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more 'free tours' before a visitor supplies basic information."

I like this because it's not a petition to try and get the government to "do something". I'm convinced that the deeper the government gets into something, the higher the likelihood of them creating a monstrosity of legislation that does nothing to help the problem, and makes the rest of our lives even more difficult. It's grass roots, politely worded, and common sensical. Will it make a difference? I guess I'll have to leave that to the fates.

Apparently this meme comes with a request to tag 20 more bloggers. I'm not sure that 20 bloggers even read this blog. What I'm going to do is post about it in the AW blogger's forum "Did You Update Your Blog Today?" thread and if anyone there comes by and wants to pass along the meme, great. If you're reading this and want to pass along the meme - cool! I love having a backlink, but that isn't even important - just pass this message along if you agree with its intent.

Absolute Write Blog Chains

It was November 2005. Jenna Glatzer opened a little sub forum called Blogging on Absolute Write. I was thrilled. I had been on AW for a while by then but the only writing I did with much frequency was this blog. Not long after that she asked me to become the moderator of that forum. I was, again, thrilled. I wanted to give back to the AW community that had made me feel welcome and this would be my chance.

Since that time we've become a full-fledged forum on the main index in the Writing Studios section, created nearly 400 threads and those have had over 7,600 posts between them. It's a fabulously polite, helpful and self-perpetuating forum. The AW Bloggers thread has over 500 posts so I'd guess we've well over 400 blogs listed.

In May of '06 I wondered if the bloggers who hung out in the forum would be interested in doing something together in the blogosphere - and soon after was born the AW Blog Chain. DTKelly (then known as Towerkel) came up with the idea and shepherded some of the early chains. quidscribs, Forbidden Snowflake and asorum are others that have taken up the task since then. If I forgot someone, I apologize - do speak up in comments and I'll edit in your name.

The AW Blogchain is in its 8th incarnation now. Many of the participants have been in all of chains. In Peggy's blog (The Road Less Traveled) she has links to all the chains in her sidebar. At AW we had two instances where we lost some threads and posts, but through it all, the chain survived.

Why do the blogchain? Well, asorum (the first link in this chain, btw) put it best - so I won't try to say it again.

Here are the rules:

• First person in the chain finds the last post of the last post and takes an element from that to base their blog post on so that the previous chain and this chain are connected.
• Second and subsequent participants in the chain will take an element from the entry before theirs and incorporate it into their post. So for me to post an entry, I need to read yours and find something about your post.
• The last person in the chain takes an element from the post before theirs and from the first post to tie the chain together.

The last post before mine was about a wonderful volunteer opportunity that Atomic Bear participates in. And much of the theme of this chain has been about giving back and paying forward. The AW Bloggers and this chain have accomplished a lot of that since May 2006, and I'm glad to finally take part.

Volunteering is something I used to do more of. I remember, with much joy, the summers I spent teaching the daily arts and crafts lessons to kids at Vacation Bible School. The things you can do with popsicle sticks and glitter never cease to amaze me.

And it never seems like I'm giving up much when I volunteer, it seems like I'm gaining so much more for myself than I could possibly be giving to others. Now I mostly volunteer for things I can do from my computer, although occasionally I get the chance to do some things at work like the 'Build a Bear' project we did awhile back to benefit children in the pediatric ward at the local hospital. I built a sailor bear I named after my daughter's boyfriend, a sailor currently overseas in Kuwait. I hope he's well loved by a child who needs him. (the bear, not my daughter's boyfriend - he's taken...)

One of these days I will probably get my act together again and start getting out in the world more. I'd like to think I'll do more volunteering. I'd like to do something for the local library. Thanks, Atomic Bear, for making me think about it.

Next up - the famously most frequently Farked AW blogger XThe NavigatorX at his blog, Fireflies in the Cloud.



Here's the entire Blog Chain - go read, comment, enjoy!

asorum - A View From the Waterfront
BK_30 - Just A Small Town Girl
Gillian - Even in a Little Thing
aruna - Down From the Garrett
Simran - Writing-From-Within
Forbidden Snowflake - Incoherent Blabbing From an Incoherent Person
Cath - Curiouser and Curiouser
Peggy - The Road Less Traveled
Atomic Bear - BTGC Production Log
Dawno - NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES
XThe NavigatorX - Fireflies in the Cloud




awchain

Gifts and Stuff

Are you thinking about gifts for your Valentine? My husband sent me the link - I nearly fell off my chair laughing about some of those.

And for folks who fondly reminisced about their Lite Brite toys (or, like me, never had one - and no, I don't mind, am not scarred for life by it) because of the whole Boston thing. Warning: That link is addictive.

I didn't post Wednesday night because I was preparing for a very important presentation and on Thursday night, I was recovering - it went very well, we got the go ahead on our project.

Tonight the ol' head is a bit full of cotton because I spent almost the entire day creating a learning guide for a new application folks at work will be using (I hope) soon. It was in PowerPoint with screenshots from the application. All that cropping and pasting and stuff is exhausting. I gave about a nanosecond of thought to adding a voiceover narrative and some animation. Then I said...well, something rather profane so I won't repeat it...and sent it off to the team that will be doing the actual training.

In commiseration with me about my PowerPoint loathing my friend the Digital Medievalist sent me this link. I am trying to figure out how to use "Great Pith!" in everyday conversation, now.

I will be heading off to bed now. Have a great weekend!

Bookshelves

I have lots of books. What I don't have is enough bookshelves. These aren't practical, but they're interesting, clever, nifty.

Speaking of books, I haven't said much about Publish America lately. I owe my introduction to some of the most wonderful people I've ever had the pleasure to meet (both virtually and in person) to PublishAmerica. Not because they did anything wonderful for me, but because of the Atlanta Nights sting. When it came to light, I heard about it and followed a succession of links to Absolute Write where there is a wealth of information about Publish America and many ex-PA authors talking about how Publish America treated them, etc. I started hanging around Absolute Write as a result and now a couple years later, I'm still hanging around generally making a nuisance of myself. *grin*

Well, a while back I was asked to contribute a chapter to an Atlanta Nights-like manuscript. That book, Crack of Death, is now available for purchase at Lulu.com. You can buy a paperback copy or download it. You should also visit the website.

Finally, I am a published writer. Unfortunately it's deliberately bad writing. Problem is, I'm not sure my deliberately *good* stuff is all that much better! Well enough that I've made my little mark in history. That and my Purple Prose award may be my entire writing legacy.

Finally, Something to Look Forward to On Mondays

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I Needed a Pencil - I've Nearly Finished Cleaning My Office

Ever let things get a bit out of control? Well, "a bit" is a gross understatement for the situation in my office. I had a path to the desk. That's about it.

Over the holidays my office became the repository of shipping boxes from online purchases and shopping bags from the mall. Then stacks of mail started to pile up as I decided to "read later" what was mostly junk. The trash can (it was full of paper stuff - not icky trash) was overflowing (due in part to a huge layer of used Kleenex from my cold - ok, that's icky trash of a sort).

I wanted a pencil today. I knew there was one around here somewhere. So I started cleaning. I now have about 2/3 of the room tidied up - nowhere near "clean" but manageable. Things still need organizing, but at least I know where just about everything is.

Of course now I'm too tired to do what I wanted the pencil for, but since I unearthed about 20 books, I have plenty of reading material.

Between bouts of cleaning I wander around on Absolute Write and Making Light. On Making Light I read about Google Reader - how did I miss that? I use Google for everything it seems.

I'm now busily putting subscriptions to all the blogs I know into the reader. As I'm doing this the reader is showing me the feeds. I see on The Secret Government EGGO Project that the Superbowl is about to start. I had completely forgotten! Not that I'm interested in the football, I just like the ads. So every so often I wander out to the living room and watch the ads. Then I come back here once the game comes back on.

Remember all the ACME stuff on your favorite Warner Brother's cartoons? Here's The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog of ACME Products. Thanks, TNH's Particles!

How Did You Get Here?

Victoria Strauss over at Writer Beware's blog wrote about some of the interesting searches that brought people to the blog. That got me thinking about what searches might bring folk here and I went back through my SiteMeter data to discover these searches:

• ancient time traveling technic - somebody from Malaysia

• gay life toons (I have a couple of "gay zombie penguin" 'toons on my site from veinglory) - someone in Bangkok Thailand

• scribbles and giggles tax id number - Houston, TX
  

• pics of 1oo dollar bill stacks - this one knew how to cover their tracks, all info is "Unknown"
  

• someone from LA went to Technorati's Barbara Bauer tag and visited here too.
  

• White legs vides - someone whose ISP location is Quatar. I do have white legs. I haven't done a video of them yet. Perhaps I should?

• Jeweled calculator - someone in Illinois. I did mention these items in a pre-Christmas post once so it makes sense.

• "Cities with weird names" - Washinton state. Took them to my post about my daughter's move south.

• I love this one: airstream decorated in christmas lights picture - from someone in Rhode Island. That took 'em to my Intense Christmas Sweater post. Poor dear.
  

Over the past year I've averaged about 650 visitors a month (that average got a big boost with the nearly 2k visitors I got in May '06 during the AW shutdown). I don't work at making each post something that will get a lot of search hits. I had no idea titling my blog NVNC ID VIDES, etc. (you'll need to scroll down the linked page to see the motto and translation) would bring any hits (except for Pratchett fans) at all. After all, I ended up blogging, in the first place, in rather a strange way.

My first blog at ohdawno.org was just a lark. I wrote my first blog post in October of 2003. I knew other people with blogs, I like writing so I thought "what the heck?" I posted there infrequently and irregularly. I still post there now and then.

I got involved in a forum (the now defunct Soapbox at Wil Wheaton dot Net from which members created a subsequent iteration www.tehsoapbox.net), and got to know a lot of fun people and many of them had Live Journals so I started a Live Journal to keep in touch with them and extend my ability to converse with them. Most of those posts are "friends only" and I'd need to put you on my friends list.

Then I joined Absolute Write. One of the members there had a blog here at Blogger. I wanted to comment but at the time the blog was set so only Blogger members could comment, so I started this one.

This is the blog I've actually kept up - there's a feed of this blog for LJ users if one of my friends wants to subscribe and read what I post here. I think it has a whopping 6 or 7 subscribers. I'd like to actually consolidate this blog at my domain www.ohdawno.org - I just haven't taken the time to figure out how to do that and if it's worth doing.

As I write this I'm listening to the KQED broadcast of part of the "State of the Valley" speech by Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. I hope there's an archive of this soon, it's very worth listening to. One comment reported on by The Mercury News was: "But Schmidt also talked of the effect that so much finely tuned information might have on people's personal lives, asking the audience to consider what might happen to privacy in an always documented world and to consider an ever-evolving future."

What is/are my blog/s telling the world about me? One thing for sure: I'm seriously weird.

Found and enjoyed via Stumble recently:

Stuck, OMG!

642 Rare Error - oops!

Unicorn Stories - Are There Not Enough or Too Many?

Not that long ago a dear friend of mine made note of unicorn themed submittals she had recently seen. I hadn't really noticed any particular increase in unicorn writing, but I'm way behind in my reading of F&SF so maybe there has been an increase in interest lately and I've just missed it. Why this popped to the front of my mind today, I have no idea. But it did.

A quick peek at Amazon.com shows that 36 books are to be released in 2007 (at least, so far) that reference unicorns. The search brings up over 20,000 related hits. Now probably in most cases these books might use the word somewhere and the focus isn't on telling a unicorn story. The book could be about a little girl who has a stuffed unicorn, or discussion of unicorns in heraldry, so the key word search isn't definitive.

What's your feeling about unicorn stories - enough, not enough, too many?

Sculpture of the Day

More on the Boston Lite Brite Debacle "...Instead of becoming a stronger society, we have become a society that is so skiddish[sic] that we can’t go to the deli without fear of terrorist attack. We can’t see a piece of junk in the corner and not think it is a bomb. And we are engaged in a long term war responsible for tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties because we are so skiddish[sic] we allow our government to talk us into anything."

Spoof iPhone ad If the iPhone really was a portable shower and deodorant,too. I'd buy it.

Art, Heroes, and Fast Food Enemies Terrorize Boston

A new take on those "Wash Me" notes found on the windshields of cars
I'd like a nice Monet, please.

If you're concerned about possible velociraptor incursions into your neighborhood, you should bookmark this site. I've printed it out and posted copies all around the house, one can never be too prepared. I found the illustration to be particularly helpful.

I downloaded all the aired episodes of Heroes onto my iPod - bought the season pass so I can watch all of them as they come on. (Yes, I could watch them on the NBC website or use my TiVo, I just wanted to put them on the iPod and be in control of what I watch and when I watch it. I haven't been allowed to touch the TV remote in years. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration)

The tiny screen isn't as bad as I thought it would be and I'm listening through speakers so the sound is ok, too. This is a really well done show. A bit gory in parts - I won't spoil anything, but if you have trouble with shows like CSI, well, this can be every bit as bad.

There has been a lot of chatter about the "suspicious devices" in Boston that turned out to be promos for a Adult Swim cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force. My favorite quote of the day about it all was in the CNN article "In addition, the Pentagon said U.S. Northern Command was monitoring the situation from its headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but said none of its units were sent to assist." Seeing that the "threat" was an ultra sophisticated, (ages 4 and up) Lite-Brite type display, it's no wonder NORAD didn't go on high alert.

Perhaps the Doomsday Clock should also be moved a minute closer to midnight as well - Lord knows, Hasbro has seen to it that there's quite a proliferation of the infernal devices out there.

Better yet, is there a Dimwit Clock out there that measures how closer to complete idiocy the city leaders in Boston and representatives of Homeland Security have gotten with their responses?

And to top it off...by tomorrow will there be anyone left who doesn't know who Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad are?

Menageries of the Mind

There are many productive things one could do with one's free time. Wash the dishes, pay the bills, get the taxes done, write/paint/crochet/whittle something.

There are also those busywork things one could do, such as organize the CD collection (alphabetically by artist or title?), re-arrange the furniture, clean out the junk drawer. I could spend half a day just cleaning out and arranging all the makeup and toiletries I have collected and then stashed away in drawers and in boxes under the sink.

Then there are the silly things. For example, this person has created an interesting menagerie - from stockings and other things one can find around the home (apparently this person was into sports - I'm still trying to figure out what I'd use for elephant ears since I don't have any tennis racquet covers around here). Best I ever did along those lines was put cellophane tape over my nose and make it look snoutish.

Ever draw two eyes on the side of your hand just above your thumb (and maybe some lips) and create a little hand puppet right on your hand? Some of you are probably old enough to remember Senor Wences...anyway someone has taken this to a new height and created some lovely "Hand Painting Art" I love the giraffe and the painstaking detail on the alligator!

Well, that's what I've been doing this evening - web surfing and sniffling (yeah, the cold is still with me but I'm getting better. Just really lethargic.) I leave you with The Daily Kitten

Smile!

My Wastebin Overfloweth

Before you read on - read this post by my favorite fisherman

There's a box and a half of Kleenex (anti-viral version) in the wastebin next to my desk. I really hate having a drippy nose. And I'm a vision of lovelyness sitting here at the computer with a Kleenex stuffed up one nostril. Hey, whatever works, right? I don't want to get the keyboard slimey.

I still can only breathe through my nose sporadically and usually only one nostril at a time is clear. Why is that? What is it about the nose that only one nostril clears up and the other one stays clogged? And I won't go into detail about the condition of the skin around my nostrils, I know there's only so much TMI people can stand. Suffice it to say there's no makeup out there that will make it look normal.

Absolutely nothing I've taken for this cold has worked, either. Although, an ounce or two of Irish Mist is just, generally, a good thing whether one has a cold or not. Even with the help of Irish Mist I couldn't sleep through the night last night. I was up at the computer at 1 a.m. and tossed and turned the rest of the time. If I didn't have an 8 a.m. meeting to attend (thankfully it was a conference call) I would have stayed in bed all morning.

After that meeting I ended up taking off most of the day and finally did get some sleep. A nice long hot shower helped a bit.

The cats loved that I was staying in bed so long, except when I sneezed. They'd be all curled up beside (or on) me and then I'd let loose with a sneeze trailing a sonic boom behind it. Suddenly I was all alone on the bed, bleeding from the gashes one gets when one's limbs are used for cat sprinting starting blocks. Then they'd cautiously wander back in. One of them, the long hair we call Pudding, likes to climb right up to my chin and poke his nose at me to get some quality scratching time. If I make the mistake of acutally succumbing and petting him he does it over and over everytime my hands get tired and I stop. Sneezing on him will get him to stop, temporarily. He has a very short memory. I'll sneeze, he'll run away, I'll doze off and be awakened by a cold nose. I may close the door on them tonight - it looks like I have half a chance at a decent nights sleep (i.e., one nostril is unplugged right now and I hope it stays that way long enough).

Of course, being the loving and generous wife that I am, I have freely given the cold to the hubby. He started to feel it coming on this evening. Tomorrow should be miserable for him if it follows the same course mine did.

Cool site of the day (via Stumble)

Stumble!-ed On These Today

StumbleUpon is another way to w/a/s/t/e/ t/i/m/e/...uh, websurf. I added the Stumble! button to my browser tool bar, indicated some preferences at the StumbleUpon site and off I went into the internet. You can also tag sites, vote for favorites, share links, and acumulate Stumble friends. I just use it to wander aimlessly around the web. These are some of the sites I discovered in today's wandering and thought were worth sharing:

A game for word origins trivia fans I did pretty well - missed two out of the 10 or 11 questions.
An audio-visual tour of the three realms of the afterlife per Dante
a geo-politcal 404 error
MP3s of classical literature and philosophy (I'd like to be able to download some of these to my iPod so I can listen to them away from my computer...)
How to keep an idiot busy (yeah, I'm an idiot)
Mousepad Couch (I'm left wondering if they purchased all of those mousepads - there must be hundreds - maybe a thousand?)
and a blast from the past: Mr. Picassohead
I once created an AV using that site:


Also, visited the other day and I'm still reading, via Making Light's Particles (wherein James D Macdonald is thanked for the link), Supernatural Law

What Do You Get After Spending Three Days in Meetings?

A horrible cold.

I've switched jobs at work and am now in a new organization. That's the good news - I'm really looking forward to the new challenges. My first couple of days in the new org were also the days that org had scheduled its global meeting. I got to meet many of my new colleageues from around the world. And someone in that crowd brought a nice little rhinovirus from somewhere that found a perfect host(ess) in me. Friday afternoon I was fine. Friday night I couldn't stop sneezing, sniffling and felt completely icky. I went to bed very early and slept most of Saturday.

So what went on in Dawno's life in January? My daughter was here through the 19th. I rode back down to her place with her that weekend and flew home that Sunday night. Even though we didn't do much (although we had some great shopping days) when she was here, it is just so nice to have her around.

We bought some games and played "Fact or Crap" one night. My hubby and I met online almost 16 years ago because of our mutual love of trivia- there were nightly trivia games run by the members of Q-Link (the predecessor of AOL) that we both played, so I thought it would be a fun game for all of us. We did have a good time - but the thing about the Trivial Pursuit games is that you learn the correct answer. With Fact or Crap you only learn that it's Crap and not a Fact - but the game leaves you wondering what the real facts are and that's a little bit frustrating for trivia buffs.

Is it actually possible to sneeze one's brains out? I think I just might be the one to prove it.

In other news, I finally went to the Social Security office and started the ball rolling on my name change. I was going to do it sooner but I couldn't find my passport, which I needed because I don't have an official birth certificate. The process was easy, everything I needed to know and the forms I needed to bring were all available online. The wait at the Social Security office wasn't bad, either, and I didn't have an appointment, just walked in.

The only thing that gripes me is that the computers at Social Security will not allow any punctuation in names. I have an apostrophe and a hyphen in my new last name. This will not be shown on my Social Security card. The part of my last name that's pre-hyphen will continue to be mistaken for a middle name and some systems even have been known to think it's part of my first name. You'd think there were enough names out there with apostrophes and hyphens that they'd fix that glitch. Yeah, I know, it has to do with programming language. pfft. Fix it. On behalf of the millions of Americans of Irish descent - fix it!

I did feel very sorry for one fellow there. Apparently Immigration had messed up his name in their records. Let's call him Kumar. Kumar is his first name. His last name - oh let's just say Jones. From what I could overhear in front of me (the local Social Security office is small - although it's less than a block from my home, so it was very convenient), Immigration put "Kumarjones" as his last name and "Kumar" again, as his first.

So here he is at Social Security trying to get some Social Security document in the name of Kumar Jones. The clerk at Social Security is telling him "No, your name has to be entered as Kumar Kumarjones - see that's what it says right here on your Immigration documents. I can't issue you a Social Security document saying you're Kumar Jones, I have to issue it just as these documents have it recorded - you have to go back to Immigration if you want your name fixed."

This exchange was repeated several times with lots of pointing at things on papers and on the computer in front of the clerk. The clerk acknowledged repeatedly that he understood that Kumarjones was not Kumar's real last name, but the clerk could only use what Immigration had put down. I guess Kumar finally understood, because he left. I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be for him to get Immigration to fix his documents. I know just getting an appointment with Immigration is hard enough. Poor Kumar.

Next visit is at the DMV. I got an appointment for that one. The local DMV is always a zoo.

Hi Philip!

That's it. Feel free to comment.

It's 2007 - Welcome Llamas!

Llamas were in this year's Rose Parade. They've been trying to get in for 15 years. The horses don't like them, so they've been excluded. This was newsworthy enough to be carried in the Washington Post. I first heard about it from my friend Unique who sent me the information in an email a week or so ago. Larry Brennan on Making Light was the only one who seemed to feel this was as important an observation as I did. He even brought it up again in a different thread, later. I think Larry and I may be kindred souls.

Well, I'm down to my last vacation day. Sadly the last 3 days I've had a nasty cold. There's just something completely cosmically unfair about getting sick during a vacation. My cold has also lead to snoring so stentorious that the hubby is forced to sleep on the sofa-bed.

I hope your 2007 is getting off to a good start.

Ten Minutes Left of 2006

It's been an interesting year. Not entirely like the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times" but every now and then, kinda-sorta.

Have a Happy New Year, everyone!

The Gay Zombi Penguin 'Toon I Should Have Put Up In JULY!!

I have no idea how it happened, but I missed the posting of my very own stop on the Gay Zombi Penguin Tour back in July (the day before my birthday even!). So here, very belatedly, are the Gay Zombi Penguins from July:



Now, the artist/author of Gay Zombi Penguins wasn't 100% satisfied with that one, so she drew me a new one! Yay! TWO for one!

Blog Chain #8, The Android's Dream, Star Trek, Fizzle

The AW Blogchain is plugging right along, now in it's 8th iteration. I've asked to join in this time around and I look forward to participating. Please read along and comment - even if it's just to let us know you popped in for a peek.

The participants (by AW username) in posting order are:

BK_30 -Just A Small Town Girl
asorum - A View From the Waterfront
Gillian - Even in a Little Thing
Simran - Writing-From-Within
aruna - Down From the Garrett
Forbidden Snowflake - Incoherent Blabbing From an Incoherent Person
Cath - Curiouser and Curiouser
Peggy - The Road Less Traveled
Atomic Bear - BTGC Production Log
Dawno - NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES
XThe NavigatorX - Fireflies in the Cloud

I loaded 6 CDs worth of Christmas music (Mannheim Steamroller, Trans-siberian Orchestra and a Celtic Christmas CD) plus an iTunes purchase of Renaissance Christmas music (also Mannheim Steamroller). That's several hours worth, at least.

I'm also going to figure out, at some point, how to subscribe to some podcasts. I can do some via iTunes, but there are others not listed there I'm interested in. I have a cool little digital recorder that I can download stuff to so that might be the solution for portability.

I'm about a quarter of the way into John Scalzi's The Android's Dream and it's been a very fun read. I highly recommend everything he's written, including his blog Whatever. (very cute kitten alert - be prepared to say AWWWW)

I'm also reading through some Star Trek fiction. There's a trilogy that was put out for the 40th Anniversary, Crucible with each of the books featuring one of the three main characters, McCoy, Spock and Kirk - in that order. I finished the McCoy book the other day and started the Spock one today (yes, I'm reading two books at once - the Trek book is a pocketbook sized paperback and the Scalzi is hardback. It's easier on my shoulder to carry the Trek book in my purse). I also picked up Voyages of Imagination which "takes a look back on the first forty years of professionally published Star Trek fiction, revealing the personalities and sensibilities of many of the novels' imaginative contributors and offering an unprecedented glimpse into the creative processes, the growing pains, the risks, the innovations, the missteps, and the great strides taken in the books." (from Amazon's blurb)

Since I've been collecting these books since, oh, 1969 or so, I'm pretty excited that I'll have a way to check for completeness of my collection as well as organizing it. I think some of my books have gone missing over the years, so I'll want to fill in the gaps.

Well, the brain is fizzling out. Good Night!

Dawno,
awchain
Star Trek
Writing,
Blogging,
Blogs,

Put on Your Sunglasses - It's Time Again for Dawno's Intense Christmas Sweaters!

(the first part of this post has appeared in Absolute Write's "Thread Killer" thread, so it may look familiar - I believe in recycling)











Yes, it's that time of year again. The time of year when Dawno wears her Intense Christmas Sweaters to work. I now have enough of them to wear for the rest of December's working days starting Monday the 6th. I can't tell you how excited I am. I just love the puzzled looks on some folk's faces. They're not sure if they should flee or just put a present under me.

(Tiara International Sweater, above)

However, I have one great sadness, much the same as last year - I haven't found any really, really highly embellished Tiara International sweaters so far this year - not even online. They used to make the best ones. I can only hope that I can get down to SoCal after Christmas and find some down there - last year I found a couple very nice ones, but the store that had them has been bought out by Macy's and they haven't had any good (for the Dawno value of "good") Christmas sweaters in a Macy's in years.

What are the elements of a certified Dawno good Christmas sweater?

Color - there needs to be lots of it but there should be a reason for the colors and they should harmonize. One of my favorite sweaters has many shades of browns and golds worked into toys and ornaments and Christmas trees. Another features shades of green that lean towards sage and olive - looks lovely with a pale sage turtleneck. I "lost" that sweater for a bit and was extremely joyful when it resurfaced last year.

















Theme - the sweater should have a unified theme. Snowmen and snowflakes, trees and ornaments or trees with presents, Santa and reindeer. Let's not just clutter up a sweater with every conceivable Christmas icon. And placement is important. I like detail down the very center of cardigan style sweaters and at the bottom hem. On pullovers the entire front should be covered. Stuff on the back, it's ok, but it should be a continuation of the front, not something entirely different. I have one new sweater that has simple conical, decorated trees up the front, and there's a line of stitches that go over one shoulder to the back with Christmas light bulbs at the end of it at about mid shoulder. I approve.














Beads and metallic threads - definitely, but again, for embellishment not for their own sake. Random sequins or beading doesn't work for me. I have a sweater where the pointsettias are embellished with bugle beads and it's perfect. Sequin garlands on a Christmas tree, lovely.

Last year it was suggested in comments that I embellish my own sweater. I'd love to do that someday - I just can't make myself put aside the time for it right now. One year I searched and searched and couldn't find a new sweater. I did find a cardigan in ivory that had snowmen and snowflakes embroidered on it in off white yarn. Barely visible - certainly wouldn't show up in pictures.

I decided to get some shades of brown, tan and gold embroidery floss and stitch over parts of the sweater to give it color. I worked a few of the snowflakes and the caps on the snowmen. I put the sweater on. The snowflakes were unfortunately positioned on the sweater, which I didn't realize until I tried it on and looked in the mirror. They looked like light brown and beige yarn pasties. I picked out the work I'd done on the snowflakes but left it on the caps - they looked fine. Lucky for me I did find a sweater at the after Christmas sale at Robinson's May in Bakersfield and wore that to the family celebration later that day.

I have broadened my Christmas wardrobe this year in a new direction. My daughter and I were shopping while I visited her last month and I got a pair of flannel jammies. They were decorated with pink flamingoes wearing ski caps and scarves standing in little snow drifts outside of Airstream style trailers decorated with Christmas lights. I may now need to buy a new pair of jammies every year as well.

I will face the mall hoardes once again tomorrow. The holiday bracelets I ordered have come in at Brighton and I'll need to pick them up. I'll wander around for a few hours, hoping to be inspired by something I can get for a gift but I truly dread going out into the crowds. I think this will be more of an online Christmas than ever.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last Thanksgiving I wrote this:

'Apple thing' is a favorite around here. I never would have guessed when I first tried it out last year but it was well received and back by popular demand this year. As to how it got stuck with the name 'apple thing', I made the mistake of writing down 'apple thing' on my list of steps to take (so everything would finish at approximately the same time) and times to take them. I place the list on the counter. Everyone who goes in the kitchen reads the list. Now everyone calls it apple thing. I bet there's a real name for it. Don't tell me. I'm happy with it as is.

As a public service, I give you the Apple thing recipe:

Pour two cans of apple pie filling in a round pyrex lidded bowl and top with crumb cake topping and cook it with the turkey for the last half hour. (you can do it in any pyrex dish so long as there's a lid - I just happen to have a round one I like.)

Topping: pour out a mound of Bisquick into the bottom of a medium sized mixing bowl, don't ask me how many quarts or what, just medium, and the mound - well lets say a couple cups. It doesn't quite fill half the medium bowl.

Add 3/4 of a stick of butter, about a half cup of brown sugar, a generous dash of cinnamon - mush it up 'til it's all clumpy. Pour it over the apple pie filling.

Should I write a cookbook or what? I think it would go well with icecream. Serve warm or cold. We like it warm.

I was talking to my daughter about the Thanksgiving dinner shopping I did the other day. She asked me at the end of my recitation "What about applething?" Oh goodness, I'd forgotten to get the canned apple filling for applething!

This morning my daughter arrived from SoCal around 9 am. I picked her up at the airport and our first stop before home was the grocery to get the apple thing stuff and something for her to drink (our fridge has my Arizona Diet Green Tea, the hubby's apple juice, a couple bottles of Romulan Ale and a couple Bud Lights. Oh, milk. And a bottle of Mead.)

Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same for my daughter without applething.

I also wrote last year:

Things I really need to buy at Williams Sonoma:

* A ricer, I heard a chef on NPR say that was the best way to make mashed potatoes
* A good oven thermometer, I have NO IDEA when my oven has pre-heated. My old stove had a little light that went out. This one has no such indicator. I just turn on the gas and wait about 20 minutes
* A gravy boat, I'd like one in my china pattern, but Lenox has discontinued the McKinley pattern from its Dead Presidents line of china so the only way to get a gravy boat is to buy it from a discontinued patterns place which, right now, doesn't have any gravy boats. We used a large melamine bowl and a spoon for the gravy. Classy.
* A knife block

Since I wrote that I've obtained all of those items - not all at William's Sonoma,I did get the ricer and knife block there, but I found the oven thermometer at the grocery and got a plain white stoneware gravy boat at Cost Plus World Market.

The table is draped in a new cloth, the centerpieces are out (one of the grandkitties keeps gnawing at the dried stalks wheat they stuck in it. I've removed the wheat and put it away). Yankee Candle scented Housewarmer candles in Pumpkin Pie scent are burning (I don't cook pies - I buy them and we eat them cold from the fridge with way too much whipped cream). The turkey is in the oven and at about 2:30 I start whipping up the side dishes.

This year it's just the hubby the daughter and me, I'm thankful that we can be together. I'm thankful that my son hasn't been deployed yet. I wish my daughter's SailorBeau was here - he's in the Middle East. I hope the Navy puts on a wonderful feast for them.

I'm thankful for NaNoWriMo - I've proven to myself that I can face the blank page and write (nearly) every day. I did 50k in about 18 days. I'm no where near finished with the story - December and January will be my personal NoWriMos. Then I let it sit so I can come back to it with fresh eyes and start the re-write. Maybe by spring I'll have something to ask a beta reader to look at.

My best wishes to you all for a lovely day, whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving or not, I'm also thankful that you come by and read here.

Dawno,
AppleThing,
Thanksgiving,
army,
soldier,
emptynest,
Writing,
Blogging,
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Parenting,
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