FREE STUFF!!!

Today marks Harlequin Enterprises's 60th anniversary!

Go to www.harlequincelebrates.com and you can download a free full book from a fabulous selection of 16 different romances, ranging from Inspirational Christian romance to racy Blaze to Paranormal Romance to NASCAR-branded goodness!

Who can pass up free stuff in these dark economic times?
Now, go! DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!!!

In other news, flute vagina can cause blindness...

I coulda told you this.

Gleaned from Yahoo!News:

LONDON (Reuters) - "Cello scrotum," a nasty ailment allegedly suffered by musicians, does not exist and the condition was just a hoax, a senior British doctor has admitted.

Back in 1974, in a letter to the British Medical Journal, Elaine Murphy reported that cellists suffered from the painful complaint caused by their instrument repeatedly rubbing against their body.

The claim had been inspired by reports in the BMJ about the alleged condition guitar nipple, caused by irritation when the guitar was pressed against the chest.

But Murphy, now a Baroness and a former Professor of Psychiatry of Old Age at Guy's Hospital in London, has admitted her supposed medical complaint was a spoof.

"Perhaps after 34 years it's time for us to confess we invented cello scrotum," she wrote with her husband John, who had signed the original letter, which was published in the BMJ Wednesday.

"Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realize the physical impossibility of our claim."

Murphy, who said the couple had been "dining out" on their story ever since they made it up, said they had decided to reveal the hoax after it was referred to in a recent BMJ article on health problems associated with making music.

She also said she suspected "guitar nipple" had been a joke.

Happy Lunar New Year!

It's 4707, the year of the ox!

Unfortunately, fortunetellers are predicting a pretty sucky year, especially for President Obama, the inauspicious 44th president of the United States of America.

Everyone: send him some jade rats to offset the bad luck!

Top 100 Animated Cartoon Series according to IGN

IGN's Top 100 Animated Series list.

I will happily accept #2. And I might grudgingly accept #1, except for the fact that it ran its course after the seventh season. But we all know Avatar belongs a little higher up than this. 8 )

I mean, c'mon. Did it really get beaten out by Muppet Babies? It was okay at the time when I was 12 years old and just needed something to fill in the 9:30 to 10 a.m. Saturday-morning gap. But if we're judging based on animation, storytelling, and impact on popular culture, I hardly think it deserves a mention.

Well, at least Avatar beat out Naruto.

Well, she's got her priorities straight, at least

Me: Bowie, spell your name.

Bowie: Okay. B-O-W-I-E, Bowie!

Me: Very good!

(an hour later)

Me: Bowie, spell your name for me again, okay?

Bowie: Okay, B-O-W-X-I-E, Obama!

Me: *falls over and dies laughing*

5 seconds of fame!

Look, Ma! I'm on TV!

Click on the video at the right hand side under Videos: Michael Dick reports: Subway running, power being restored in Toronto's west end (Runs: 1:53)

That's me at 0:26! Tee hee!

I'm happy to say the blackout did not hit me at home, but I had to walk to St. George Station from Christie in the -20-odd temps that morning. Not as bad as my colleague, who spent four hours being diverted all over the place because of misinformation. But damn, it was cold.

Don't be pubicly humidified...

On the impotence of proofreading:

Shelf signage fail

Courtesy of FAILblog:


see more pwn and owned pictures

Ode to a dead Poinsettia

Oh, dead Christmas flower;
(insert metaphor about how poinsettias are poisonous, deceitful, and fleeting like women in red...or something)

Why did I bother buying your velvety red bloom
when I knew all you'd do
in my sunless basement apartment
is die?

Sickitating

Warning: gross being sick talk ahead.

Today is day four of Vicki's Viral Spectacular. I'm at home from work (second and a half sick day off this week, and it's only the beginning of the year!), because last night I had about 2 hours of sleep. And not good sleep--more like the hallucinatory fever sleep that comes when your body is so desperate for rest that it'll try to knock itself out with delusions of actually being knocked out by a psychotic clown wielding a giant fish.

The body is a weird and wonderful thing sometimes. You'd think it'd try not to kill you, but as my sinuses slowly filled and clogged, then decided it would be fun for all that fluid to slosh back and forth from nostril to nostril so I was alternately breathing stinging dry air on one side and not breathing at all from the other, I decided my body was actually on a mission to drive me slowly insane.

I'm happy (use big finger quotes here) that those same sociopathic sinuses have decided now's the time to drain, but as it stands, I think I've expelled a chicken farm's worth of egg whites out my nose. Where the hell is all this mucus coming from? If this was in my lungs, I'm surprised I didn't drown.

Of course, the absolute worst part of being sick is not the fever, not the chills, not the debilitating weakness you get when you touch something a degree colder than your own feverish body so that all your muscles recoil and you're hit with a bout of overpowering nausea and dizziness.

No, the absolute worst thing about being sick is being able to smell your sickness oozing from your pores. A day of lying around in your own sweat-stained pj's that you've already changed twice after three showers does not help the acrid odor of feet clinging to your skin and hair.

I hate smelling like feet. I hate smelling me at all.

I'm not the only sick person in my house right now, unfortunately--John has definitely picked something up, but he keeps powering on somehow. And poor Bowie came down with a fever last night. I can only hope the baby and parents will stay healthy, as they're scheduled to go to Boston next week. There's nothing worse than traveling while sick.

Except for traveling while smelling like feet.

Well, nothing for it but to stay home and try to preserve my workmates from this illness. Before SARS, there was a weird stigma associated with actually staying home on sick days. Even I still believe that if I can go to the doctor, I can go to work. But as I get older and it gets harder for me to recover from sickness, I'm really starting to appreciate those days lying around in delusional hazes and watching mind-numbing TV. Though lately it's been reading Pride and Prejudice to help put me to sleep.

Now if only Elizabeth Bennet's crazy antics could do something about the phlegm....

I MUST GET THIS BOOK

...And so must YOU.

Because no one does it like Smart Bitches (see the permanent link on my sidebar.)

Year of the Rick Roll

As 2008 fades, all I can think is that it was the year of the Rick Roll, and that after this stunt, it can never, ever be used again. What new Internet meme will 2009 bring?

Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2008! Hell-o 2009!

This year promises some great things for me, and while I've given up making resolutions, I am looking forward to the following:

• Starting a fresh day book and calendar: the old ones were getting ratty--they were, like, a year old!
• A hot new president who will change the world (politics is fun again!)
• Being a bridesmaid in one of my longest standing friends' wedding (I'm struggling with the proper term, because it's not oldest friend, and long-time friend sounds weird. Anyone? Help?)
• The bachelorette party associated with said nuptial (very possibly to Las Vegas)
• Watching as more of my friends from high school try for and grow big with children (and subsequently pointing and laughing, then consoling the tears and recriminations...)
• John finishing his masters of journalism (and school forever...?)
  
• Me and John going on a celebratory trip to some place hot--possibly on a cruise of some kind
• A possible start to searching for our first home together
• Planning the wedding

Okay, so that last one isn't so much a "looking forward to" point as much as a "will have to address eventually" one. But I'm sure that will become evident throughout the year as I start the actual planning.

Best wishes to everyone in the new year!