Associated Content

Obviously, I've not been frequenting this blog very often. I've been freelance writing more and more which limits my time, but I've also found that I can get paid to vent my frustrations at Associated Content



In all honesty, I'd rather vent and get paid for it. So anyone looking to read up on my latest happenings is welcome to go to AC. If you can write, I highly recommend signing up with them while you are there. They take anything from game reviews to television show recaps to town information and travel guides.

Oh, Boy. Guess I've Been Busy

I just noticed I've let a month slip without posting. Sorry for those who do come in and read. I have been busy writing travel articles and trying to catch up with reading!

I did have a warning to send out today. Recently a job posting appeared in Craigslist within many cities. The company was/is looking for restaurant evaluators - think mystery shopping only for a restaurant. I was excited and signed up. Within hours I had the necessary forms, only after reading them two contradicting terms made me leery. Thankfully, I'd not yet sent the W-9, so they didn't have any of my SS information.

The company had two contracts for you to sign. One stated that you were not an employee so that made you able to work for any of their competition providing you keep information regarding your jobs and their paperwork format private - copyright laws and all that. I had no problem with this.

However, in the second contract it stated that you could not own, work for, contract for, consult for, be an officer for, or manage any other restaurant evaluation firm to a term of two years. Failing to meet this term made you open to lawsuit. I emailed them immediately and the woman claimed that the form only means you cannot own another firm within two years. I became very worried over this term because it clearly states more than "owning" per the "consult for," "contract with," and "work for." I'm not willing to risk a lawsuit because of their unclear terms.

Anyway, it wasn't a day later that the account I used to apply for the job started filling up with spam even with my spam filters turned on. I try to use a private Yahoo account for things off of Craigslist and I hadn't used this account for anything yet. For it to suddenly be filling up with dozens of "Evaluate hotels," "Become a mystery shopper," "mystery shop at restaurants," etc. I am pretty certain they took my email and then sold it. That ticks me off and I informed Craigslist of it.

For this reason, I am warning others who may have seen this ad from Restaurant Evaluators, don't bother! The spam truly isn't worth it! I'm up to my 47th spam message today and am clicking away constantly to beef up my spam filters.

GeoBee

This weekend, my husband and I took our son to participate in his school's GeoBee. Now I am seriously hoping that the Vermont chapter of the GeoBee is not related to the National Geographic competition at all. If it is, what an embarrassment for National Geographic!

To start, some brainchild decided that the regional competition would be held in Northfield, about a two hour drive, and that all students had to be there at 9:30 to register with his school's team and await the arrival of the others so that the competition could begin promptly at 10am. So we left at 7:30 on Saturday morning (try getting a teenager up at 6:30 to get dressed and showered on a WEEKEND. This is earlier than he has to get up to catch the bus during the school week.) There was no time for breakfast at that hour, so unfortunately he had to go into the competition on an empty stomach which wasn't a good thing.

They started off extremely well. I still can't understand why they opted to hold the competition in this place with a lack of seating and the seating that did exist was folding metal chairs. We were told that they usually use the auditorium in the middle school that have padded seating, but they wanted to try something new this year. Folded metal seating SUCKS, but we'd been told the competition would take two hours. Three hours later, my behind disagreed with the location!

The geobee is 12 rounds of sheer torture. These questions are ridiculous. One round of questioning had nothing to do with geography. The questions were - What is the name of the professor killed at Virginia Tech two weeks ago? The next, where was he born? Where is he being buried? I supposed to of those questions could be stretched to fit in with geography, but it is a stretch and nothing these kids would have studied. So that category was absurd.

My biggest issue came towards the end of the competition. In round 10, a question was asked - What is the deepest lake in the world? And then four choices ABCD were given. IN round 12, the question was asked again without the choices. So obviously that team got it right because they heard it two rounds earlier. That same round 12 another question was asked that had been asked three rounds earlier. The teachers and parents were all balking that it was unfair to repeat questions. Meanwhile, the judges were simply stating too bad these are the official questions we were given. So one team was able to pull ahead of another because they got duplicated questions.

In the end, my son lost, and no he's not upset by it. He's actually quite happy and plans to skip this competition next year. He got one question about pointing to Cuba on a map, he looked at the map and they had Haiti there and then a circle next to Haiti that was shaded with the symbol representing a lake, so he was unsure what was goign on and decided to point to Haiti and explain that the other was shaded to look like a lake. Two teachers jumped up to defend him and the judges shot them all down.

My experience with this stunning GeoBee, what's the point? The judges were from the school that won, so obviously there was some crooked politics going on. The announcer is a TV announcer for public television and he seemed not to care. In the end, my son learned that he competition is too biased for him to have enjoyed. It's a shame they let this happen to somethign that has such promise otherwise.

Church & Religion

I had a discussion this past weekend regarding the state of religion today. I do realize everyone usually has a strong opinion regarding church and religion. I'm no different. The question came up - what is the one biggest incident/occurrence that shaped your views of church/religion. For me there is one biggie:

When my son was born, we had just moved to a new town. Let me backtrack, I didn't grow up with parents who pushed us to attend church. They let us make our own choice with my dad being Protestant and my mom Catholic. As a teen, I took a job working in an area church's nursery and Father Don was human. He did not look down on anyone. He make the services fun, with laughter and merriment.

So I move to this town, and there are three choices. Catholic, which wasn't going to happen, Methodist, or Baptist. I opted for Methodist and my husband and I decided to start going ever week because having our son Christened was important to us. What a miserable experience that turned out to be. The reverend was very anti any form of gambling. He scorned people who bought raffle tickets (even for charitable purposes), lottery tickets, friendly poker games with friends, etc. But I figured it might be a Methodist principle. We attended for a couple months and then my husband's work started forcing weekend overtime. Because I stayed home with our son, we cut down to one car to save money. So weekend overtime meant I was home without a car. For three weeks while he was mandatoried, we skipped church. The next week we returned. Before the service, the reverend's wife and some of her friends were sat in front of us and made the following comment out loud so that I heard - "I don't know why those sinners bothered to return at all. It's obvious that they are doomed."

Floored, I walked out of the church and never returned. When the reverend called me to find out why we'd left, I told him and he stood up for his wife. At that point, I decided that with an attitude like that church was not for me. Over time, I've developed into an agnostic anyway. I am pretty sure there is a higher being, but I'd like evidence to prove it. Renderings of a "white" Jesus doesn't convince me. In Jerusalem, he is far more likely to be Middle Eastern. Again, I want my proof.

Then I heard another story that happened probably fifty years ago. My grandfather was the one who would go out and plow roads during the winter. Vermont winters are quiet snowy. So one Sunday morning, he had been out plowing snow since the wee hours. He made it to church and happened to fall asleep during the sermon. The pastor took him to task in front of the church for daring to fall asleep during a sermon. Church wouldn't have been held had he not been out clearing the roads, so I'm baffled. He never returned to that church.

Obviously, times haven't really changed. It leaves me to wonder, how can people like this call themselves "Christians". Tolerance is supposed to be a part of being a good Christian and I've heard far too many stories of intolerance in church to believe some churchgoers are truly any nicer than the average joe.

Why??? I Don't Understand This!

I caught this news story today.

http://cw2.trb.com/news/kwgn-csu-football-kid-hit,0,7112496.story?coll=kwgn-home-2

I can only imagine how horrible the player feels, but I am still perplexed and have yet to find an answer. Why was this four year old down on the field? He should have been in the stands and not on the sidelines. I realize the students say they have no plans to sue, and if they had said otherwise, they wouldn't have wanted me on a jury. I cannot understand why the parents allowed the kid to be that close and from the video I saw, I don't see a parent nearby either. If anything, they are more to blame.

Simon Is Right Again

I get tired of them always booing Simon. He's usually the only person up there with common sense. I would LOVE to hear Randy expand his vocabularly. My husband has taken to predicting what Randy will say and he's usually right. What's up Dawg, Yo, Dope... they all drive me nuts. Someone hand the man a dictionary please!

Last night was country night with Martina McBride--

Phil did Keith Urban and he finally got peppy. I liked that.

Jordin did one of Martina's songs "Broken Wings" if you have ever tried to sing it, you know there is a lot of holding notes and hitting higher notes. Jordin nailed it.

The drunken karaoke clown seems to think that "Something to Talk About" qualifies as country - in my book Bonnie rate is more blues. Whatever, he sucked anyway.

Lakisha - She did Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take the Wheel." I liked how she started. Then she hit the chorus and to me it was all over the place. She yelled, she expanded words to make them last longer, shortened others, and I just didn't like it at all.

Chris did the one Rascall Flatts song that I don't like "Mayberry". He thinks his nasal quality was for the song, I'm afraid he does the nasal, Billy Goat note holding thing too often for my taste. He had a rough night given the V Tech tragedy, and I feel for him for that reason, it had to be hard focusing on music when your head was with your friends. I don't think he should go tonight, but I bet he will because the one who deserves to go won't.

Melinda did a newer Julie Reeves song. I don't know it, but she definitely pulled sassy off.

Blake - I wasn't horribly impressed. First, Blake picked this song, I'm certain, because it really isn't a country song. Ryan Adam's wrote and performed "When The Stars Go Blue" years ago. Bono and the lead singer from the Coors make it a hit a few years back. I'm betting Blake knew the Bono version better than the Tim McGraw version. I still say Bono's version is the best of the bunch and Blake left me feeling bored.

All in all, I'm betting it comes down to Phil, Lakisha and Chris tonight and Phil will be the one to go home only because someone else keeps staying in there undeservedly.

Is It The Weather?

Sick of rain and snow, my husband and I opted to spend all of Saturday doing errands and getting the kids and myself out of the house. I freelance write and had been completing assignments for IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and a travel guide for a city in Vermont. There has been nothing but rain and gloom for 9 days here, and this was topped off by a snow storm yesterday. Our basement is now flooding and in general I am sick to death of this weather.

Anyway, Saturday we are driving down Shelburne Road, not one of the best roads in town due to the congestion, and this woman on a side street decides she wants to ignore the red light and pull out in front of traffic. My husband didn't have time to stop, so he got past her okay by swerving into the other lane half way, but she was obviously pissed that he didn't stop and let her out ahead of him. A few miles down the road, she passes us on the right by using a turn-only lane and misses our car by inches as she cut back in. Now, my husband at this point is laughing at her stupidity--she was in a brand new (temp plates anyway) Pontiac Grand Am, our car is a few years old. Had she hit us, she was clearly at fault for passing us in a turn-only lane, and she would have owed us a nice little sum. She then proceeds to give us the finger repeatedly by slowing to a crawl. Meanwhile, there is this elderly woman in the car looking scared to death. I grabbed my cell phone and made it look like I was calling in her license plate number (don't really think that would do any good around here, but it did the trick) she flipped us off once more and sped off until she was on another car's bumper.

Usually this would tick me off more than it did, but the speeds were slow enough that I know any damage caused wouldn't have hurt any of us. This was apparently only the beginning however. We then ran into a real jerk who kept pushing his cart into my daughter anytime she wasn't tucked right against my cart. Instead of apologizing, he would comment that she needed to get out of the way of adults. This store, Mr. G's, doesn't have huge aisles, I understand that, but at the same time, he seemed to be following us around. I would see him go into an aisle and bypass it and all of the sudden he would be right there again, so I'd backtrack to an area I missed and he'd be there again.

At another store (a Bouyea Fassetts Bread store), the clerk insisted that a sale item wasn't on sale until the manager came up front and told her he'd discussed it in the staff meeting and that if she looked at the sales notice pinned to the register she would have seen it.

It just seemed no matter where we went, the people were extremely pushy and argumentative. With this in mind, I wonder how much of this is weather related. I know I deal with SAD from time to time, but this long dreary period when we should be much warmer must be affecting lots.

Fate's Twisted Humor

Growing up in VT, Ben and Jerry's has been a staple of my life for decades. Unfortunately, in the past decade, their quality has gone downhill in my opinion. It's mass produced now and you can tell it.

So a couple weekends ago, I came across another locally made ice cream, Island Ice Cream, that is made about 15 miles from my house. We drove over to the islands in Lake Champlain to buy some. http://www.islandhomemadeicecream.com/

On the drive to Keeler's Bay Variety Store, we saw a smooshed rabbit in the road. Now, obviously my kids are older so this wasn't too disturbing to them. Nonetheless, my daughter did have to ask about how many kids were seeing this dead rabbit and thinking Easter Bunny... It was rather twisted to think about it being the day before Easter and there was a bunny dead in the middle of the road...

The Feminine Mistake?

So I recently heard about the major debate over author Leslie Bennetts' book "The Feminine Mistake." Apparently, the author brings up points about why becoming a stay-at-home mom is a bad thing. My immediate goal was to find out more about this woman. She is a mom, so she gets minor points there.



I have been a stay-at-home mom for thirteen years. Sure, I rely on my husband for money, the government told me long ago that I'm useless to them and that as a "non-working" entity, I am entitled to NOTHING, I do some writing from home to supplement our income and to earn enough credits to qualify for any social security benefits that may or may not be around by the time I am of retirement age. I will not argue the author's points regarding the financial aspects of being a stay-at-home mom.

However, I would not change my life. I'll take the lower pay scale having been out of the actual work force for more than a decade. My kids are well-adjusted, do not touch drugs or alcohol, they have not had sex by the age of 13 like many of their peers, and they are both straight A students. To me, that is far more important that money.

In my childhood, almost every mom in the neighborhood stayed home until the kids were in middle school. We are all well adjusted. The one mom who did work. Her son has been in and out of jail, beats his wife, and is raising his children by ignoring them unless they've done something wrong and in that case he'll smack them around too.

In my own neighborhood now, I look at the homes where the moms either work from home or stay home. Those are the children who never get into trouble. Across the street, we have girls who actively do drugs and are dating boys much older than themselves. In other homes, one boy was dating a girl 10 years older and his mom was at work and seemed not to care "she's slow and seems to be mentally the same age..." A kid down the road almost went to jail for destroying headstones in the cemetary because his mom was working and he was "bored." Some former neighbors used to kill time when their mom was at work by having sex with the neighborhood boys. For these girls it became a game to see how many times they could have sex before the mom came home. Sadly, and far too often, I'd see the mom pull into the driveway and then the boy would be climbing out the bedroom window. Where are they now? Both girls are now in their early twenties and both girls are moms. Each had a child by her 19th birthday.

This isn't what I wanted of my kids. I'll take the loss of pay and stay home until they have matured enough to know right from wrong. My kids know that we could be in a much nicer place financially had I not given up my job as the assistant to the president of a mailing company, but I was willing to sacrifice everything to raise children who know how much I was willing to forego. Eventually, I will be returning to the workforce. In the meantime, I am tired of those who do think that SAHM's are going against the ideals set by feminists years ago. Perhaps the freedom to choose what you feel is right for yourself and your children is the ideal goal.

Would I buy this book? Never. I don't feel the need to pad someone's pockets when they are not showing both sides of the issues.

Unseasonably Cold

Global Warming... I am sure there is some merit to it, but suddenly I find myself in the throes of winter again and given that the weather pattern has shifted oddly like this for hundreds of years, I begin to doubt that the change in weather patterns are truly based on global warming. According to my morning news, the warmest day on record happened more than 20 years ago. The coldest according to the grid at Weather.com occured in the 1920s.

So far our winter started off incredibly warm. Through early January we had little snow to talk about. Then something shifted. We started hitting sub-zero temperatures regularly and this was followed by a pattern of holiday snow storms. Valentine's day dumped more than 20 inches on most of Vermont. The same occurred on St. Patrick's Day. My neighbor jokingly asked what Easter would bring. I really wish he'd kept his mouth shut. They are saying that those of us near the lake will be spared the worst of it, most likely sticking near the 2 to 6 inch range. Those in the mountains, enjoy your 3 to 10 inches! This weather sucks! I've had enough and am extremely ready for spring

Education Today

My daughter is in the 4th grade and has been struggling (very frustrated) with math this half of the year. Our school uses a program developed by the University of Chicago and in my opinion it is worsening the way children are learning math.

In the past month, I have kept notes regarding what she is learning from day to day, week to week. In mid-February, they switched from learning multiplication to division. They started by memorizing basic division (the tables). It hasn't come horribly easy to her, but she's working on it.

The first trouble came when the unit jumped into long division in mid-January. They still didn't have their tables memorized and this suddenly became a huge challenge to many of them. My daughter learned this odd way that I can't see how it helps and now the frustration is kicking in because she cannot understand my way and I think her way is making the paperwork and time involved triple.

So to divide 7 into 320, the kids have to guesstimate how many times 7 would fit into 320. My daughter did a problem similar to this, guessed 30 and that leaves you with 110. She then has to figure out how many times 7 fits into 110, etc. At the end, she adds all of her "guesstimates" and gets the correct answer eventually.

Most of us learned to divide 7 into 32. Subtract, bring down the 0, and continue. It is so much faster, and neater!

Anyway, a week after this assignment, they jumped to geometry and started working on triangles. A week later they were working on surveys/polls. The next week they worked on fractions. Supposedly this breaks up the boredom. Meanwhile, we are back division now, but they are learning how to turn fractions into decimals and she's utterly confused because the division wasn't enforced for long enough that she can get the problems done. Come to find out, not that it was on the homework papers at all, they are supposed to be using a calculator now until they have learned division.

Why not just learn division before you start showing children how much easier and quicker it is to use a calculator? I think it is sad that they are teaching kids to use a calculator before they are teaching them how to do the actual math.

I'm working with her now to teach her my way of division and we are working daily so that it sticks. Sadly, I know many schools started using this "Everyday Mathematics" and I don't think that this system is truly going to help children in the long run!

American Idol/Sanjaya #2

Never mind, I was just reading that Howard Stern has been on a quest to prove that he can control who wins American Idol. He's been urging his listeners to vote for the worst contestant. Given that, we all know that Sanjaya is guaranteed to win. May as well stop watching now.

American Idol

Okay, I'm not a big fan of reality shows over all, but I do watch American Idol. Like many viewers, I'm left wondering exactly what these teeny-boppers see in Sanjaya.

American Idol is supposed to be about TALENT not looks, yet week after week the rather lame Sanjaya whose performances strike me as very bland, makes it another round. His faux-hawk was just as weak as his performance, and I have a feeling that hair-do helped him stay out of the bottom three.

I guess what I don't understand. Sanjaya seems to be a decent, slightly shy kid. He has to know he's not as good as the rest of the competition. By now he knows he is the laughing stock and that he's even pushed one woman (slightly deranged albeit) to go on a hunger strike until he's booted out. In fact, he's even pushed Simon to serious consideration of not returning for another season. With all of this in mind, how can he not resign? Apart from some ten-year-olds, and what 17 year old wants to be the object of a 10 year old's devotion, and his family and friends, he's not getting support from the rest of us. In fact, I know quite a few people who loathe him.

After last night, I had to wonder. Is it really the 10 year old crowd that is pushing him through? Perhaps, those who have hated Idol and all it stands for are voting for the weakest link to show just how ludicrous the show has become...

Ratings are down over last year - I don't find that surprising. Even I am sick of it. Tony Bennett is next week, I think I won't mind skipping it at all.

How It Should Be Vs. How It Is

American Idol - Sanjaya. I realize he'll win because of his amazingly large population of fans. He just doesn't have the talent in my opinion. With training perhaps, but he has no stage presence and his vocals are far too weak and timid. His hair, I don't even want to go there. When he told Simon he was just jealous - trust me Simon had nothing to be jealous over. The hair was ridiculous!

Television:

Television in general. It was a dreary, rainy day yesterday so I watched some television in the afternoon while waiting for my daughter's bus. Here there is a rule that a child is not dropped off unless the parent is visible. Flipping channels, I came across The Real Housewives of Orange County - WHY are people paying these women to act ridiculous? Then one of my top billed "Shows that have no place on television" I Love New York. WHY are these men fighting to get to be with her? I've yet to understood that. She's loud, brass, obnoxious, and sorry but just not that attractive at all. I can't imagine why they stay and put up with her. I'd like to see the tides of TV turn and get away from reality TV and focus on something better that doesn't make my mind melt after thirty seconds. Too many people are now making money for ludicrous reasons.

Music:

My daughter came home and told us she had to do a report for her music class (4th grade) and had chosen Ray Charles. First, I'm impressed by her choice. Second, I'm happy to say that we've listened to lots of Ray Charles in the past week and she's really enjoying most of it. I wish more schools could offer music classes and take this approach to showing kids that there is a lot more out there. Sadly, I also know that many schools have given up their music classes to keep budgets down. If teachers would stop asking for dramatic pay raises in some areas. (Speaking from experience, my son's 2nd grade teacher was making $50,000 five years ago, she's now up to $62,000. She's not a great teacher and often made him feel very inadequate, despite the fact that he has never received less than an A- in any class.)

Speaking of teachers, I got another letter from my children's school. My son has just missed his fifth day of school this school year due to illness. The school still wants to keep student absences under three per school year. I tore up the letter and have this to say:

1. If students can't miss more than three days, why has my son's science teacher, the brainchild behind the attendance committee, already been out 10 times this year. I'm keeping tabs this year and so far he is definitely slacking!

2. How about you disinfect the school!! In my daughter's class, we were just talking to her teacher. There are 17 children in her class. One now has viral pneumonia, 10 have had strep, all 17 wound up with the stomach bug back in February, 10 had this weird high fever and lack of energy. If the kids are bringing it home to their siblings and friends, you cannot possibly expect other kids to remain healthy.

What I'm sick of is the school's attendance committee's decision that children who miss more than three days per year will fall behind in their classwork. I'm certain that is true for some. Pushing kids to attend school when they are sick is absurd. My own son is a straight A student, has been since kindergarten, and always completes any work that he misses. Until this changes, stop wasting my tax paying money and stick to focusing on the kids who truly are delinquent.

So, Anna Nicole Smith

For years, I have been telling my husband that Anna Nicole Smith needed serious help. I was saddened when she passed on, but I can't honestly say I was surprised. Every appearance she'd made, her speech was always slurred and she looked lousy.

Yesterday, the results on her autopsy came in. Three different antidepressants, Human Growth Hormones, sleeping pills, and pain killers. They've deemed her death accidental. I'm sure it appears that way. However, I don't get one thing. The people around her - her assistants, her supposed husband, how could they stand by and watch her pop all these pills. To me this is the real tragedy. The woman was grieving the death of her son, she was understandably despondent, and probably postpartum depression was kicking in as well. Perhaps she was in counseling, but she needed to be kept in-house and not just handed pills. She needed serious rehab.

Who was her doctor that happily prescribed her all of these different pills? I know the sleeping pill came from her friend and psychiatrist- the woman's license needs to be carefully examined in my opinion. How could those around her sit and let her take all these pills? Pills are NOT a solution!! To me that is the real tragedy. While they didn't actually kill her, from what I see they sure didn't lift a finger to help her out either. She should have been placed in a mental hospital a long time ago and taught to be independent and weened from all pills.

Per Yesterday's Post

Yesterday, my "American Idol" post ticked a few people off. I went back in and edited it, deleted every post, and then planned to come in today and restate exactly how I (emphasis on I) feel. Those who wish to respond in a civil manner certainly may, otherwise expect your post to get dumped.

For all of the Taylor Hicks fanatics. I didn't mind him last year. He reminded me of a young Michael McDonald at times. For the record, I do have his album and I think it sucks. And I did see a news story - tabloid or not, I can't exactly remember who had posted it so I can't cite my reference as some have demanded - that said he was disappointed that his fans had suddenly become absent in terms of record sales. He may be the greatest guy in the world, but I can also truly believe he would wonder where all of his fans were when his record failed to sell extremely well.

Kelly Clarkson fanatics (funny how there were about a dozen of Kelly's #1 fans who posted, I'm afraid you cannot have multiple #1 fans, and I would be her immediate family get to truly claim that title) - I did happen to see her in the Reba M. tribute and yes she was great there, she and Martina worked well together. I'm also sure she really got to practice. I saw her aired live before a Nascar concert a few weeks ago and she was horrible. Again, maybe it was an off day, but based on that one live show I wouldn't pay money to see her.

Let's see. Clay Aiken - he has a few fans too, but I still don't like him. That's my opinion and telling me that I have to see his concerts before I judge him. I think not. I have better things to do with my money. I heard all I wanted on American Idol.

Kellie Pickler - again, still don't like her and all the fans in the world won't convince me to change my mind.

For those who then wondered exactly where my music tastes do stand. They vary. I would far prefer to spend my money on people like Jonny Lang or Shannon Curfman who can play guitar better than some "pros" and never seem to break out into the limelight. I expect Stevie Ray Vaughn quality from my musicians. I want to hear a voice and not have to name fifteen others before getting the right artist. Louis Armstrong, you'll identify his voice every time. The same is true of Maria McKee, Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Eric Clapton, etc. There are other bands that sound so much alike that they've become boring to me. Many of the Idol "stars" follow down that sound-alike, boring path.

That's one of my things. For an artist to have true talent, let's see these American Idols pick up an instrument, write their own music, and have America judge those songs. It worked extremely well for Chris Young - he took the Nashville Star win. Though I'm not fond of his style of country, I hate twang, he wrote a song, performed it, and won the competition. To me, that is true talent.

American Idol

After laughing my way through the auditions, I have watched a little more Idol this year than I normally would. I don't enjoy the popularity contest that this show endorses. Become a singer if enough of the world loves you for your looks/appearance versus your actual talent. Sanjaya is solidly proving my theory.

The kid can almost sing. I'll give him that. He has no stage persona, however, and for that reason he needed to be out of that show WEEKS ago. Unfortunately, I think there is a strong aspect of racism here. Whine if you like, but he is Indian (the country) by ancestry and I think the majority of those voting for him are voting for who he is/where his family comes from versus his actual talent. I won't even go into a rumor I've been hearing about those from India that work for U.S. companies managing to get in and vote. Maybe it's true, maybe not - but either way there needs to be a stricter voting system in place.

I think it is high time that American Idol sits down and looks at their format. It is far too easy to vote for this show and no one has to vote responsibly. Hire a panel to vote or allow the judges to have a larger say in who really stays or goes.

Energy Efficient Lightbulbs

After reading the news a few weeks back about California's decision to outlaw normal lightbulbs, I spent a little bit fuming about the price that some families are now having to spend. I will not argue the impact on the environment, but in my small house, I would need to purchase 29 light bulbs to cover all of the lights inside, in the basement, and outside. Some stores here sell those bulbs at $10 a pop so that would be pretty costly.

I did, however, make the change this week. If you have a Costco, they are selling 8 packs of those bulbs at a ridiculously low price. Here they are $10 for the 8 pack, but the state is offering an instant rebate of $8 - making the 8 pack cost a meager $2. Not bad, so I stocked up and started changing the more frequently used bulbs over. You may want to see if your state is offering a similar rebate.

Anyway, I also stumbled across this website. The biggest draw is that it records your purchases and tells you your total yearly savings to date. I'm up to $120 a year now - so my electricity bill should show a difference of $10 per month. Just one month has paid for all the bulbs I need.

Video Games Vs. Egos

I am the first to admit that at times I can be a wicked kid at heart. I see nothing wrong with this! Everyone should let their hair down, ditch grown up responsibilities, and enjoy themselves periodically. Given it is my birthday week (we celebrate weeks here in my home rather than a single day it's far more rewarding), I was given a PS2 for my birthday. While some of my presents will wait for the actual day, I did receive three presents from others earlier. This leads me to two very popular games that I have spent plenty of time with this weekend.





Guitar Hero II is going to drive me batty. I would like to think it has nothing to do with my age, but as someone who can type 80 words a minute, I know my fingers are capable. For the life of me, I cannot make my brain and fingers connect for Guitar Hero II. I did manage to pull a three star rating on Heart's Crazy on You, but for the most part I will be in a pattern of red red yellow yellow and then have to hit green and fail miserably.

In the end, I am highly addicted, but I wonder how many cases of carpal tunnel syndrome will occur from this game! If you want a game that both parents and kids will have so much fun playing together, purchase Guitar Hero II. It's available for either the Xbox 360 or the PS2.



PS2 also offers a new Karaoke Revolution game that is an at home version of American Idol that gives you ample opportunities to have Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and then some Paula Abdul Wannabe named Laura tell you exactly what they think of your singing. This game is PERFECT for those who want an ego boost!!

Now, I realize I can sing. I may be too old for American Idol in real life, but the game has no age restrictions. My issue, I can't get Simon to tell me I suck. I do know that he can do it, he told my son who was imitating Bob Dylan's style that he was horrible. For me, I always wind up with Randy telling me I rock, Paula/Laura saying she can sum me up in two words - Phe and Nominal. Then Simon tells me how much he loves me and how I am the next American Idol in his mind. And the cartoon version of Simon is just as sexy as the real life version. ;-)

Karaoke Revolution American Idol is great fun. I can see it providing hours of entertainment at our next poker/game night. It's another must-have in my book.

Online Dating

I recently had to write a series of articles on online dating. I had to write them for sixteen different companies and include the pricing plans, features, and such. This was an easy and interesting task, but I also learned something.

First, everyone tells you not to trust what you see. I would state this is true. In order to access any of the information, I was forced to create free profiles with each site. In every possible case, I added that I was only researching costs and that in order to do so, I had to sign up for an account. This made me active with most of the sites. The men I was matched with --- well some were dead on it seemed while others were so far away from what I like in a man that it wasn't even funny.

I used my traits from today and then based everything else on when I was single.

Note for those creating dating sites - if a person puts absolutely no smoking - don't then turn around and match them with a smoker anyway!!

So basically I worked on two articles per day.

Now if you've been thinking about signing up, be cautious. I created a new account through Yahoo and immediately turned on Spam filters. Even though eHarmony told me they couldn't find me a match because I had shown devotion to my children, they were the first site I enrolled with and I did not get any spam following my enrollment. A few days later, I reached a website called American Singles and then LavaLife and my spam count started multiplying. Perhaps it was coincidence, but it just seemed odd that the day after I finished those articles my spam counts increased.

There was one thing that did happen that made me leery of using online dating. I live 10 miles south of one of Vermont's maximum security jails. I have driven by the correctional center many times and know the building and scenery surrounding it. One potential match, who looked vaguely familiar to me, showed this scraggly looking guy standing in front of a red brick building with a chain fence in the background and trees behind that. Now this is the set up at this correctional center. I began to wonder if he was an inmate there... The city of residence said St. Albans for him so that would still fit. It defintiely made me wonder!

Overall, I think the online dating services are pretty good. Some are far more expensive than others, and some certainly lack. Look for sites that focus more on personalities than looks. You may find your true love sooner than you were expecting. Meanwhile, I'm happy I'm married and out of the dating pool!