Contest and Scavenger Hunt(s) – Whoo-hooo!!
Just wanted to remind everyone of my March contest – “What is the Spring Fairy thinking?”
Details here
I have also scheduled two Scavenger Hunts:
The first will be this Friday at Icy Snow Blackstone’s site
The next will be on Monday at Romance Divas
The first to respond with four correct answers wins her (or his) choice of the following books:
1. Adored
See you there!!! 
Oscar Fashions
Don’t you just love them? To hell with who’s nominated or who wins, I simply drool over the dresses. Here’s a sampling of the ones I thought were some of the best.
Jason Merritt / Getty Images
Robert Downey Jr. and wife Susan
Sparkling and snazzy – hers, not his
Mario Anzuoni / Reuters
Sandra Bullock
Elegant and sleek
Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Penelope Cruz
Love the color- the part on the top left could be a little lower
Jason Merritt / Getty Images
Rachel McAdams
Looks like Spring or a Monet painting
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images
Meryl Streep
The perfect dress for a mature woman who doesn’t mind looking her age
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images
Anna Kendrick
My personal favorite – looks like what a heroine in an historical romance would wear in her boudoir
You simply will not believe this tragedy
I know the Internet has changed many lives for the better and it’s done a stunning job of making information gathering so much easier and accessible to the masses. However, it’s not a substitute for real life, which a couple in South Korea has apparently learned, but only after they caused their child’s death.
Police in Seoul have arrested the 41-year-old father and the 25-year-old mother of a 3-month old girl they starved to death while they attended to a virtual baby on Prius Online.
Yeah, that’s right. A virtual baby.
According to the article, players of the Prius Online 3-D game nurture an online companion, Anima, a young girl with mysterious powers who grows and increases her skills as the game progresses.
The article further states the couple had lost their jobs and used the game as an escape from reality, especially after the birth of their premature baby.
My god. How can you ignore or forget a real child, especially one who has special needs because of a premature birth? Didn’t they bathe and change the baby? Didn’t they hear the little girl crying for food, nurturing, attention? No matter how depressed or stressed an adult is, unless they’ve completely broken with reality, how could they be so cruel?
I just don’t get it. Either these people are seriously mentally ill or so beyond what I would consider human they should receive the same fate they handed down to their daughter.
Some of the articles are calling this internet addiction. Uh-uh. Internet addiction is when you allow yourself to starve to death because you can’t pull yourself away. Murder is what happens when you do it to someone else.
Funny Snowmen – er – Snowpeople
It’s almost Spring, at least in some parts of the world, and the horrible winter will soon be behind us. To get you through the next frigid day, I thought I’d run a couple of funny picture of snow people.
Oh my god, RUN!!!
Toyota announces a recall of all parts for US snow people…there might be a problem.
Burp
I shouldn’t have eaten that last glacier.
View from Death Road
When you get old, all the weight goes to your hips.
Dead Men Walking
Dammit, I said you could have me to dinner – not for dinner!
Pictures from PhotoBucket and the Fun Times Guide.com Weather
When Reality TV is Beyond Belief
Have you heard the news? Sarah Palin is shopping a reality TV show with Mark Burnett, an apparent whiz at these things.
(Sarah Palin Vogue)
When I saw the news last night, I wasn’t certain I’d heard correctly.
A former Vice-Presidential candidate and a possible contender for the Presidency (if you can believe the rumors and her popularity) is thinking about starring in her own TV show about her life in Alaska?
Now, I’m not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican. I’m an independent who can go either way, just as long as something finally gets this country back on track.
I don’t think Mrs. Palin having a TV show or modeling on the cover of Vogue would make me vote for her, no matter how adorable she, her children/grandchildren are, or how winning she would prove to be.
I don’t want politicians to be my friend, I want them to fix what’s wrong – in many cases, what they messed up. I don’t care if they’re attractive, charismatic, have family values, have graduated from Ivy League schools or have a genius IQ.
What I’d like to see is some common sense for a change. Someone who follows through on what they promise. Someone with integrity. Someone grounded in reality – and I don’t mean reality TV, but the boring stuff most of us go through everyday trying to survive.
If Mrs. Palin gets her show it would have to depict her facing foreclosure, losing healthcare benefits, dealing with increasing crime in her community and learning to live with the problems in the educational system teaching her children to truly be called reality.
Somehow, I think it’s going to be more like a Disney commercial for her next run for office. It might also be what’s in store for the future when the other politicians try to get their own reality shows to capture our attention and votes.
Heaven help us.
I’ll make this brief. . .
Okay, couldn’t resist the play on words. It’s Friday, I want to have a little fun and improve the view. :) So scroll down and enjoy underwear, speedos, pecs, abs, and well, you know.
Vote for your favorite and see how many others agree with you.
Don’t know many guys who’d wear this model…
Of course I don’t know any guys who look like this.
Imagine pulling back your covers and finding him on your sheets.
Don’t get the shades…are they trying to go incognito while in their Jockeys?
Lord, there’s just too much good stuff to look at here.
Watch the hand, buddy, this is an R-rated site.
Bet he’s not listening to soft rock.
Love the strings. They just beg you to untie and unwrap him, don’t they?
(Photos by PhotoBucket)
Good bye, sweet Chelsea – may you rest in peace
Chelsea King
When I read the news that the San Diego police found a young woman’s remains they believe is Chelsea King, my heart fell. Given the duration of her absence, I didn’t hold out much hope for her safe return. However, there’s always that thought in the back of one’s mind – she’ll be okay. This will end like the Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart cases.
I can’t imagine what Chelsea’s parents are going through. Their devastation must be beyond anyone’s comprehension. The sheer lunacy of this is so hard to comprehend. She was jogging, not clubbing or engaging in high risk activities like selling drugs or driving while intoxicated.
Her last moments must have been tragic, if she had time to think at all. My guess is she did not.
In some small way I know, because when I was seventeen, the same age as Chelsea, an incident happened that I thankfully escaped.
It was during my summer vacation from school, in early August. I had gone to a Target that day, located in the suburban neighborhood where I lived. I was going to get a few things for the new semester – a purse, a book binder, pens.
I’d done my shopping and went back to my car. I’d left the windows on the driver’s and passenger’s sides opened. It was a hot, muggy day, I didn’t have the luxury of air-conditioning, and the car was so old and cheap I figured no one would steal it.
As I got in on the driver’s side and closed my door, I looked up and saw a middle-aged man looking in my direction. He was by the next vehicle, several feet away from the hood of my car. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t smile, he just looked at me with the oddest expression on his face. It wasn’t lewd – it was the kind of look you see on a cat’s face when they’re stalking prey. The eyes are riveted, focused.
I froze, not understanding what was happening. And then he started to move toward my car, still looking at me. My heart beat so hard, I couldn’t breathe. Somewhere in my brain, I thought – the windows are down, he can get inside. I had to close them. But I didn’t have electric ones. I had the kind that had to be cranked up. I got the one on my side halfway up when he reached the hood of my car and headed for the passenger side. To this day, I don’t know how I did it, but I fell across the seat and cranked wildly, getting the window up before he could reach it. He didn’t move for a second and neither did I. I wanted to throw up. I didn’t know what he’d do.
He stepped back, his hands in the pockets of his lightweight cotton jacket. My first thought was, “Why is he wearing a jacket, it’s so damn hot.” And then I knew. He lifted the jacket and exposed himself.
By then I was crying. I started the car and backed out so quickly, I nearly ran him down. I drove home as fast as I could. My parents were at work, so they never knew what happened. I didn’t want to talk about it with them. I only told my friends. I should have called the police. There’s no telling what that creep did to another young girl.
I thought about that awful moment this morning when I heard about Chelsea. I remembered how lucky I’d been that the man hadn’t touched me. To this day, it’s changed how I look at the world. I’m extremely conscious of my surroundings and whether anyone is watching me.
I carry pepper spray. I leave the mall when other women do so I don’t have to go to my car alone.
It’s not how I want the world to be, but it’s the way it is and will be until we put these sex offenders away for good. No get-out-of-jail-free card – no possibility of parole.
Krazy Kitties
I admit, I’m a nut for cats. Want something warm, fuzzy and funny to start your day?? Read (and look) on.
“You are now in my power. Repeat, you are now in my power…”
“Yowl-za!!! That catnip is GOOD!”
“Um, mister, are you a cop? I seem to have misplaced my mom.”
“Okay, whatever that brown spot is, it did NOT come from me!”
“Relax – we’re engaged.”
“Whaddya mean you’re a dog? Since when??”
“Damn. Rush hour sucks.”
Awwwwww….
LOL
(Photos by Photobucket…captions by Tina)
16, pregnant and still hoping. . .
Over the weekend, MTV had a marathon of their series 16 and pregnant. With a few minutes on my hands and nothing else to watch except reruns or sports (OMG, I hate sports) I decided to watch a bit of the show. Maybe I should have opted for sports.
Hour after hour passed as I listened to the hopes of these poor girls who seemed to have no clue about reality. “I’ll change him. Once the baby comes we’ll be a family, he’ll love me” seemed to be the most popular and enduring refrain. I wondered if these kids read too many romances where every plot has a HEA. I then wondered if we’re protecting our children too much, keeping them from understanding what happens in the real world, not warning them sufficiently about the enduring consequences of their actions.
When I was sixteen, I wasn’t even dating anyone much less thinking about having sex. It wasn’t that I didn’t like boys – I did. A lot. Thought about them all the time. I also thought about what I didn’t want – a life of poverty and struggle and being married to someone who didn’t love me but went ahead with the wedding because he had to.
Maybe I saw too many movies where things didn’t turn out well for the poor pregnant girl. The most memorable one I remember was “A Place in the Sun” with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. My mother was watching it one night on one of the old movies channels and I decided to join her.
Montgomery Clift & Shelley Winters in “A Place in the Sun”
www.filmreference.com/Films-Pi-Ra/A-Place-in-…
In the film, Montgomery Clift is poor and really wants Elizabeth Taylor who’s stinking rich and gorgeous. Settling for Shelley Winters, a sweet girl who works in a factory and loves him, he learns she’s pregnant with his child. Things tank big time from there. She ends up dead; he ends up executed for her murder.
Not the path I wanted to take. Frankly, I didn’t think any guy was worth my life or my happiness or my future. When I did start dating regularly and guys would pressure me for sex, I always came back with “Sure. Are we going to raise our baby at your parents’ house or mine?” You’d be surprised how quickly that cooled their hormones. The few that quipped, “Neither, we’re not going to have a baby” got this response: “You’re right, because I’m not sleeping with you.”
Did it make me unpopular? Yep. Do I regret it? Nope. I knew they didn’t love me. If they had, they would have understood the word ‘no’ and that I wasn’t ready for sex. That I didn’t want to be used.
Later in college when I met a guy who respected and genuinely liked me and I had adequate birth control, I finally took the plunge. My girlfriends were the same. We all decided no guy was worth altering our life plans. Somehow, we all knew we wouldn’t be able to change him. If he was an SOB before he got a girl pregnant, he’d be an SOB afterwards.
If I learned anything from that sad, sad MTV series it was that the guys were immature jerks and the poor girls and their children will be paying for their misplaced hope for a very long time.
With any luck the series will change some girls’ minds about being used by a guy, having unprotected sex and bringing another innocent into the world.
Jaycee Dugard’s kidnapper is hearing voices
Let’s face it – there’s nothing about this case that will ever bring a sigh of relief. IMO it’s the most horrendous instance of child abuse and kidnapping/rape that I’ve ever read about. I’m certain there may be worse. I’m also certain this case has sickened me to anything more awful.
And now, we’re in for another trial of the century in California, my home state. Remember the OJ Simpson double-murder trial? It wasn’t your normal adjudication of justice. It was a soap opera. Daily, I’d watch horrified by what was transpiring. I kept wondering when it would end.
And now this. Garrido’s attorneys are currently claiming that he’s mentally ill and hears the voices of angels which I suppose proves that he’s not liable for kidnapping and raping a little girl and forcing her to have two children with him.
Odd. He had enough wits about him to stalk Jaycee for days without her knowledge so he and his wife could kidnap her. He had enough foresight to keep her in his backyard for 18 years so he wouldn’t be arrested. He brainwashed her and the children to tell all kinds of stories to authorities if he should ever be caught.
Doesn’t sound mentally ill to me. He sounds simply evil – a master manipulator – a true sociopath.
I know criminal attorneys are required to mount a vigorous defense for their clients, but that doesn’t mean winning at all costs. It doesn’t mean raping Jaycee and her daughters all over again on the witness stand. It doesn’t mean freeing this creep or even giving him and his wife a softer stay at a mental institution. It doesn’t mean bankrupting an already bankrupt California so that book deals can be struck and the trial televised on TV for entertainment purposes.
This is so damn sick.
If Garrido really heard angel’s voices, why aren’t they telling him to plead guilty and crawl into his hole in prison and remain there until he dies?
My Latest Book
Stay Up To Date
Share your thoughts...