10 days, 14 hours, 28 minutes and 14 seconds. That’s what the countdown meter on the side bar of my blog reads at the time I started this writing.  The meter is counting down the time until Spring officially arrives.  However, looking out my window this morning, I believe Spring has already arrived ahead of schedule.

I was awakened by  the sound of the birds chirping and tweeting  at each other. (I didn’t even know birds could text, much less that they were members of Twitter. I wonder why none of them have  opted to follow me yet ) .   Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Spring….

The temperatures yesterday were in the upper 50’s and today they are supposed to reach 60 degrees, so I’m thinking I will take the whole day to go play outside and soak up some of this glorious spring sunshine.  After all, it could still snow again before the winter is officially over.

Here’s wishing you all a joyous day with blue skies and lots of  sunshine.

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A while back I decided that I wanted an honest review of my blog. I wanted to have it assessed by someone who  A) wasn’t my friend  B) Had never read my blog before  C) someone who would be brutally honest and not care if they hurt my feelings and made me feel like a loser and a talentless hack.  With all these things in mind, I chose to submit my blog for review at Ask And You Shall Receive, a blog review  site that is almost sadistic in their critiques.

Now, this review site isn’t for everyone. If you have thin skin and you don’t want the truth, don’t submit your blog to them. However, if you can take the heat, and you really want to know  where your blog registers on the suck-o-meter, by all means, allow them to review it.

Anyway, I submitted my blog for review and steeled myself for the onslaught of public humiliation.  It takes a couple of months for them to get around to each blog as they have a backlog of blogs in the queue at all times.  However, one day it happened. They finished my review and posted it on their review blog.  To my surprise, they gave me 2 stars, which I never expected…and the review, while not being all that favorable was overall not that painful.  In fact, the very things they didn’t like about my blog are the very things that I am most proud of.

I have posted the review below, and even though I hate to censor someone’ s writing, I did have to bleep out a couple of the words, as this is a G rated blog and I want to always keep it that way.   Here is their review:

Part One: Of Humoration

Friday, April 17, 2009

Leeuna Foster is a professional humoringulist, and though it’s possible I might have copied her byline down improperly, that’s a pretty heavy title. I mean, it’s up there with telling the batter what pitch is coming, or phoning-ahead to tell an embassy when you’re planning to blow them up – telegraphed like a bad pass, and two steps behind what no description would bring in terms of expectation. As things stand now, of course, Ms. Foster has to make me laugh.

Fortunately, she is neither snotty nor condescending, atypical of self-proclaimed humour-bloggers, and I’m assuming that this is at least partially because she is an honest-to-christ professional writer, a paid scribe in possession or her own humour column. This fact cannot be overstated, and certainly not around here, with the limping reams of violently-offensive grammatical atrociousness we receive with regularity. Her work flows, is concise and astute, the very antithesis of what we’ve all come to expect from the humour-blog genre, and my relief is a [bleep-bleep] rainbow of appreciation.

This is what I like to call Grown-Up Writing: mild, inoffensive pabulum, the soft, palatable alternative to the writing that makes you jump out of your seat like both it and your [bleep] were on fire. My pop, Dadjobber, also writes for a newspaper, and his work is very similar: Disneyfied, Nickelodeonized, with an eye to the wide-market, mass-appeal of any newspaper’s circulation. Ms. Foster isn’t, nor is she likely to become, someone who’s going to make me fall out of my chair or spit coffee on the screen; if I’m looking for Jimi Hendrix, which I am, there aren’t enough tie-dyed headbands or gasoline-torched guitars in the universe to make Pat Boone into what I’m hoping for. Ms. Foster isn’t writing for me, nor, presumably, would she or should she care to. She’s writing for people who want the Big Mac and the option of salad, and I’m reading at the greasy-spoon down the street.

My Mind Wandered… (the actual name of the blog, I believe) is observational humour that stands a couple of ticks above, “what’s the deal with airline peanuts?”, and has none of the oomph, the aaag, the omigod-there’s-a-zombie-behind-me-GRAAAAAGH! that I tend to look for whilst clicking through cyberspace. Then again, I need my eyeballs sliced against the edgy writing of surprise, of the inexplicable, of head-scratching delight, so take that into account as I slide into the seamy underbelly of personal preference.

I’m going with a couple of these:  ( STARS)

Nothing about Leeuna Foster makes me the slightest bit uncomfortable, and that’s both heroically positive and unfortunately negative, neither of which makes her blog particularly bad.

| link | 149 comments |

I linked the comments at the bottom, to the original review on the website and I also linked the name of the website, if anyone wants  to submit their blog for review.  Warning: the website contains strong language and adult content.

Even though their words are cutting and apt to bruise one’s writing ego to the point of causing a hematoma, you can’t help but laugh at the hilarious and creatively biting way these people can turn a phrase.

Does anyone else see the resemblance between Mathew Fox who plays the character Jack Sheppard on the TV show, Lost and  Tyron Leitso who plays the character Ethan on Being Erica?  The first time I watched Being Erica, I was sure he had to be Matthew Fox’s younger brother.  However, as far as I can research, they  aren’t even related.

This is just one of those little things that you wonder about when you’re trying to go to sleep. Like trying to remember a name of a song or something.   It’s been driving me crazy for a week now.  I’m wondering if I’m the only one who thinks they look alike.

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Have you ever noticed how some people talk with their hands. They make all sorts of gestures while telling a story. You have to stand at least two feet away from them or risk being injured by their flailing limbs. It almost makes you wonder if they would be able to talk if they were wearing handcuffs.  A friend of mine does that. By the time he gets to the point of his story his arms are flapping wildly and you half-expect him to lift off the ground and fly away at any given moment. He broke his arm last week and now he is undergoing speech therapy.

These people make very bad drivers. Especially if they have a passenger in the car with whom to carry on a conversation. We all have our own opinions and observations concerning bad drivers. Some folks can’t drive worth a dime. And of course we call these bad drivers “everybody but us”. And don’t you just hate it when drivers tailgate? I feel like shouting at them to buy their own gas and stop riding on my bumper.

Now that my ridiculous little opinion has been noted, let us move on to another topic. Things that confuse me. Of course that would cover a wide range of things from the Chinese alphabet to the correct way to pronounce New Orleans.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about various ways to manage stress. But is that a good idea? Of course, a day without stress is like a neck without a pain. But actually, if it weren’t for stress most of us wouldn’t have any energy at all. And the buzz word for the current century is ‘exercise’. You hear it everywhere. There are exercises for each part of the body. And now there is a new brain exercise. It’s called Neurobics and it’s supposed to strengthen the brain. This is the gist of the exercise, according to one article I read. It consist of doing something that you normally do every day only doing it in an entirely awkward way. For instance the article explained it this way:

“If you are right handed, controlling a pen is normally the responsibility of the cortex on the left side of your brain. When you change to writing left handed, the large network of connections, circuits, and brain areas involved in writing with your left hand — which are normally rarely used —  are now activated on the right side of your brain. Suddenly your brain is confronted with an engaging task that’s interesting, challenging , fun and potentially frustrating.”

The potential for frustration is everywhere, so does that mean my brain is constantly being exercised? If that is the case that would explain all these headaches. During a recent survey 9 out of 10 people said they suffered from migraines, so does this mean that the tenth person said they enjoyed their migraine? of course we must remember that 95% of all statistics are made up. So this might or might not be accurate.

And have you noticed how many laboratory rats are diagnosed with cancer? Could it be that research is the number one cause of cancer in rats?

And now, to borrow a phrase from Forrest Gump,  ”that’s all I have to say about that.” Besides,  my arms are tired from all this talking. I think I’ll  go enjoy my headache while it lasts.

The human race is a hard one to run. It’s downright grueling and nobody ever wins. And even if they did win, what would the prize be? Do they award prizes for coming in second or third in the human race?  Maybe they give you a cup or something. Who would want a trophy that says “I placed 3rd in the human race.”

Anyway who cares. That wasn’t my point anyway.

I’m thinking that humans beings are just plain strange. We do things in such a contradictory way.

Like when things are going our way we never mumble or complain about it, in fact we never mention it. We just take it for granted. When was the last time you’ve heard someone gumbling to themselves, “Good grief, I’m having one of the most wonderful  days. It seems like everything I’ve touched today has gone right. It started the minute I got out of bed this morning. I woke up feeling all great and rested then when I went out to go to work my car started. The traffic was so light I was early for work, my hair looks beautiful today and these shoes are absolutely caressing my feet. What a day! I wish it was Monday instead of Friday.”

I’ve never heard that. We just go on our merry way having the best day and we never tell anyone about it. We never say one word.

But let one little thing go wrong and we want the whole world to know what a rotten day we’re having. We harp and whine and tell every little detail starting from when the doctor smacked us the day we were born.

Which brings me to the point I was heading to earlier…finally. We have become a nation of whiners. Whining has become the number one past time in this country. And what’s more, there are some of us who have discovered that we can get money for whining.  All we need is a lawyer and a courtroom.

I think the most ludicrous lawsuit in history was the one filed in 2008  in Washington DC. And the man who filed the suit was a judge of all things. He claimed that the dry cleaners lost his pants when he took in his suit to be cleaned. He sued the dry cleaners for $54 million.  It is clearly evident that this guy has been living in DC too long. He didn’t collect any money but he did waste the court’s valuable time. Time they could have spent on something important like…whatever it is they do that’s important.

Another man sued the state because the jail he was in didn’t provide enough security, thus allowing him to escape three times through the air ducts in the ceiling. Now how dumb is that? And it seems that every time you turn on the TV there are representatives from various law firms urging us to sue the drug companies, our spouse, another driver, some large corporation, or the IRS.

What kind of example is that setting for our young people? When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up a third grader commented that he wanted to be a sewer. “You know, like my dad’s friend. He sues people and he has a swimming pool and a plasma TV and he goes to Disney World all the time.”

And we wonder why our kids are whiny.

Now if you’ll excuse me I just cut my toenail too short because the new clippers I bought were too sharp. It’s time I hired myself a good lawyer. I need a new swimming pool. And a trip to Disney World would be nice too.

Photo source: The Washington Post

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In an effort to force myself to blog more often, I joined NaBloPoMo, a social blogworking site where I promised to blog every day during the month of March.

“How’s that working out for you, so far?”  you ask.

“Not so hot,” I answer.

While I’m no stranger to deadlines, I do like to make my writing count for something. I’m starting to wonder if maybe “quality over quantity”  would be a better rule to follow.  However, I did promise to blog daily this month, so here is a post for day number 4 of  National Blog Posting Month.

Today, for want of a better topic, let’s talk about redecorating our bathroom. The bathroom can be a lot more than just functional; it can be also be a place to go when you need to get away from it all and relax in a bathtub filled with hot, pleasant-smelling soap bubbles.  It can also serve as a reading room, and its decor can also be  entertaining. Just because it’s a room that we use several times a day doesn’t mean we should take it for granted.  Following are some ideas to make your bathroom more interesting.  Or not.

First of all, we can redo the whole look simply by replacing  the current boring shower curtain with one of the following:

You can choose from the Psycho curtain, or you can make your own design, simply by smearing a white shower curtain and a white bath mat with streaks of red paint. Either way, this should give your bathroom more personality, and make your guests and family feel special when surrounded with all of these artfully designed special touches.

I’m feeling the love already, aren’t you?

Next, you might want to swap out your old boring standard white toilet with this creepy clown urinal.

Last but certainly not least, top off your new design with a roll of this:

And there you have it. A brand new look for your favorite room in the house. Your family will thank you, and your guests will envy you.  Or, perhaps they won’t.

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Doesn’t anyone take pride in their work anymore? It seems that everything is being done in a sloppy manner today.  Nothing is done correctly — not the way it used to be done, anyway.

Is it just me or are even the criminals becoming more careless and dumb than they used to be?

According to a report by the Orlando Sentinel, Shane Williams-Allen, 19, was arrested in Tavares, Fla., in January and charged with burglarizing an unmarked police car and stealing several items, including handcuffs and a Taser gun. Eventually, Williams-Allen called the police for help after he accidentally cuffed himself, and officers believe he also accidentally Tasered himself.  Way to go Shane.  Does this mean that you no longer plan on applying for membership in  Mensa?

In another unrelated incident in Oakland, police called off a manhunt for fleeing home-invasion suspects in January when officers encountered four of the men wedged between two buildings they had tried to squeeze through.

Now I ask you, is this any way for a criminal to behave?  Bonnie and Clyde are probably rolling in their graves. However, in the defense of the latter, occasionally we all think we’re slimmer than we really are.

And even NASA isn’t as perfect as we once believed it was. Remember when astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper was working on a jammed joint on a solar panel of the International Space Station and she let go of her tool bag and it floated off into space? I know it’s common to be a bit clumsy sometimes and drop things —  but in zero gravity? Wonder where the tools will eventually end up? Let’s hope they don’t suddenly reenter the earth’s atmosphere. We could be walking down the street one day and have a hammer fall on our head. That headache would have Excedrin written all over it!

Oh, and speaking of Astronauts, NASA recently reported that it was still having problems with a new system on the International Space Station that is designed to convert urine into drinking water. They  need the system to work to provide enough drinking water for when the station’s crew is expanded from three to six astronauts.

Let me be the first to say “Eeeww!”  I once thought I might like to be an astronaut. Now…not so much.

Last year NASA completed a project with the astronauts living aboard the International Space Station.  The project consisted of testing a line of odor-free underwear and casual clothing made of special fibers that absorb moisture and odors. The special line of clothing may be used by other space programs, or even sold to us Earthlings at some point in time.

Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to live on the International Space Station, tested the clothes, called J-ware, which were created by textile experts at Japan Women’s University in Tokyo.

The underwear can be worn for more than a week without needing to be washed or changed, according to an official with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Now that’s all well and good, but let us all hope that those astronauts who will be wearing these clothes have heard and heeded the adage: “If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing right”.  Let’s hope they don’t get careless and drop their laundry into space.

We could be walking down the street one day when suddenly we’re hit on the head by a pair of dirty unmentionables that have been worn for over a week.

Eeeww!  Personally, I’d rather be hit on the head by a falling hammer.

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Okay, so yes, I realize that blog layouts aren’t underwear and shouldn’t be changed as often, but I keep trying to find a theme that I like and one that makes it easy for folks to navigate my blog.  And also one that is easier to read.

If most of you are like me and you read a lot of blogs, then you want one that is easier on the eyes.  (Personally those with the black background and white text kill my eyes. However, I still read them because the content is great, but each time I think to myself: “gosh, I wish this text was easier to see”).

And also, I like redecorating. I tire of the same thing very quickly, which makes Wayne kind of nervous sometimes.  But variety is the spice of life, no?

Speaking of variety.

Yesterday I received one of those “read this and pass it on to bla,bla,bla,” emails from a friend of mine. (I know, friends shouldn’t  let friends forward emails).  However, this one, I liked.  In fact I liked it so much I decided to post it here and share it with the millions of readers who ignore my blog on a daily basis.

Anyway, for those of you who do read my blog, you may have seen this riddle before. It was first done by Paul Harvey.  When asked this riddle, 80% of kindergarten kids got the answer, compared to 17% of Stanford University Seniors:

What is greater than God, More evil than the devil, The poor have it, The rich need it, And if you eat it, you’ll die?

Are you smarter than a Stanford University Student?  Use your mouse to highlight the following sentence and you’ll see the answer:

Highlight Here:  ((   The Answer is “NOTHING”))

Some days I feel like the squirrel who came rushing into the psychiatrist’s office and collapsed upon the couch. When the psychiatrist asked him what was bothering him, the squirrel replied, “I read an article that said we are what we eat, and I just realized that I’m nuts!”

Lately, I can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing for more than a couple of minutes. I’m beginning to worry that I may have developed Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (AADD). If  my attention span gets any shorter I won’t be able to complete a whole word if it contains more than one syllable.

When doing things around the house I’ve always tended to jump from one thing to another. But lately it’s gotten out of control. Take today for example; Wayne left the house to run some errands. While he was gone, I put a pot of water on the stove to boil for spaghetti, then went in to the laundry room and turned on the washer and while it filled with water I went to the bathroom to gather up the dirty towels and linens.

While I was in there I decided to clean the toilet bowl, then I saw the swiffer duster under the sink and went out to the living room to dust the tables. I dusted one table then realized that I should just go ahead and change the sheets on the bed since I was doing a load of laundry anyway. I took the sheets off the bed and got the clean ones down, tucked one corner of the sheet under the mattress and remembered that I hadn’t fed the dogs yet.

By the time that Wayne came back from his short trip into town, the pot had boiled dry, the kitchen was filled with the smell of burning cookware, the washer had already completed one spin cycle with no clothes inside of it, the sheets were in a pile on the floor, the towels were in the living room beside the table I had dusted and I was outside playing with the dogs.

He wanted to  know if he should call the police. He thought someone had broken in and vandalized the house.

He has suggested that we move out of the house and into a hotel while I’m doing the spring cleaning this year. At the rate I’ve been going, I may not get anything accomplished before winter comes around again.

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      Who else has a beef with the TV networks and the way they choose to add advertising and public announcements to their shows?

Am I the only one who finds it extremely annoying when watching a sitcom like maybe “Gary Unmarried” or “Two and a Half Men”  (which never fails to make me LOL) or some other show that one might find hilarious, when suddenly the station cuts to a commercial break and you find yourself still grinning from ear to ear  while watching footage of the earthquake in Haiti.

Then you feel all guilty for laughing, your grin fades    and you feel just awful.  Talk about a buzzkill. I hate that!

One would think that the networks would be more selective in the types of ads they present and try to match them with the shows.

Do you waste a lot of time on Face Book?  I know I do, but it’s because a lot of my friends are there. Recently I  discovered a brand new social networking site where the members get paid to do this.  Really, I kid not.  It’s called PeopleString and it’s almost as much fun as Face Book.

They offer games, blogs, polls, email and social interaction, like any other social networking site, but the difference is that each month the members are paid a part of the ad revenue that is earned by the website.  (You won’t get rich from it, but you will earn enough so that you don’t feel like you’re totally wasting your time.)

It’s free to join and you also get paid a little bit for your referrals.  If you’re interested in joining, here is my personal link to the website. If you join there you will automatically be added to my friends list. Oh, and  we’ll both earn a few cents in the process, which isn’t half bad, all things considered.

I look forward to seeing you there:   PeopleString.com.

http://www.peoplestring.com/?f=littlelf

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