Sunday, January 31, 2010

Wasn’t ready

Wasn’t ready: "

Don’t feel bad Mittens – it happens to all of us sooner or later. *sigh*


image


Filed under: Just for Fun, LOLz Tagged: Funny, LOLz
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Saturday, January 30, 2010

What Color Do You Need?

What Color Do You Need?: "

Umm, say what now? Black, with red or orange? It’s not Halloween! And I like yellow!













You Need Some Black in Your Life
Black will make you feel powerful, in control, and not bound to what other people think of you.
And with a little black, you will project a aura of mystery, rebellion, and dominance.
If you want people to respect you, you’ve got to get a little black in your life!

For extra punch: Combine black with orange or red


The downside of black: People won’t be able to "read" you – and may perceive you as more aggressive than you actually are


The consequences of more black in your life:


You’ll become a figure of intrigue and speculation
You’ll be better prepared for life’s unknown path
You’ll rest better and free yourself of expectations




Filed under: Just for Fun, Quiz Tagged: Fun, Quiz
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Friday, January 29, 2010

Friday Fragments

Friday Fragments: "

It’s the last weekend of the month. You know, I’m just sayin’. In case you weren’t aware. I don’t know about you but these things sort of sneak up on me.


Which means it’s getting close to the changing of the color guard here on the old blog. Valentine’s Day is in February, and that’s typically red and pink, but I just did red for Christmas and I’m not feeling particularly pink, surprisingly. These are the things Falcon ponders in her off hours. ;)


~~~~~~~~~~


I came across this article when I was trying to catch up on the news the other day. It kind of made me sad. Book stores? Gah! Not good when you’re married to an author, or know many people who are also working on their books. Jewelry stores? Coffee shops? Toy stores? The Blockbuster thing I kind of predicted a few years ago. Really, who didn’t? Netflix came on the scene and it was pretty much the writing on the wall for Blockbuster. Plus, I don’t know about you, but the times I went there (and yeah it’s been a few years) the staff was pretty rude. They gave the impression they expected me to apologize for interrupting their social hour. Now, for a business that’s facing intense competition, having rude staff is like the #1 business killer.


But this is the free market system at work and if these businesses had been meeting the needs of the buying public, they wouldn’t be closing stores like this. That’s why no one rides Amtrak anymore.


Who’s Closing Stores in 2010


By Tom Van Riper, Forbes.com




Ritz Camera
2009 Store closures: 365


Waldenbooks/Borders
2009 Store closures: 110 (Q4 2008 to Q3 2009)


Blockbuster
2009 store closures: 300


Zale Corp.
Fiscal 2009 Store closures: 218


Jones Apparel Group
2009 Store closures: 69


Starbucks
2009 Store closures: 566 (fiscal 2009, 12 months ended Sept. 27)


KB Toys
2009 Store closures: 461


See the full list of Who’s Closing Stores In 2010?



~~~~~~~~~~


Since I can’t get to my email, I can’t get to my jokes. I guess we’ll just have to imagine “teh funneh” today.


“Two frogs walk into a bar …” My favorite Budweiser commercial. It’s probably somewhere on YouTube. :D Have a great weekend everyone!




Filed under: Thinking out loud Tagged: Miscellany, Thinking
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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Thursday Thankfulness

Thursday Thankfulness: "

I am thankful today for answered prayers. And maybe this post should go up on the faith blog as well, since it deals with those kinds of things. But that’s what I’m thankful for today. There are moments in life when the Lord just reaches out and touches you, sits down and has a cup of coffee with you, and tells you how things are going to be. There are moments when He soothes your fears and reassures you that things are going to be okay. There are moments when He laughs with delight like a schoolboy and cries, “Watch! Wait ‘til you see what I’m going to do! This is so cool!”


For quite some time now I’ve been feeling like the Lord has been saying to me, “My majesty, let Me show you it!” And let me tell ya, it’s mind boggling to behold. I have been watching Him work in amazing ways in the lives of Darc and I for the last few weeks – things that I really can’t yet go into detail here – but please believe me when I tell you, God is here. Right now. In my house. He’s been raising valleys and lowering mountains. Obstacles? What obstacles? He’s been soothing, reassuring, comforting, and most of all, smiling. You have no idea what it feels like to have the Creator of the universe smile at you, especially when there were so many years when it seemed like He didn’t. There are times I feel like my head is going to explode with all the insights I’m understanding now, things that didn’t make sense before, all of a sudden are crystal clear with that, “OHHH!” sensation.


So we’ve had a few breathless moments here at the Darc House. Most times, in the lives of Christians, they have periods where they can look back and see that God had been working in their life at a particular point, but it’s almost always in hindsight. And I have those moments too. But right now, I don’t need to look back, because I’m looking around and seeing Him working now, in the moment, day by day. And I can’t even begin to tell you how thankful I am for that. :D



Posted in Thankfulness Tagged: Thankfulness
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Posting from the Future!

Posting from the Future!: "

No doubt you’ve heard me mention “future posting” before on one of my posts and maybe wondered what I was talking about. Future posting is one of the coolest – in my opinion – features of WordPress. Blogspot doesn’t have it. Sure, you can put a different date on your Blogger post, but it will still post immediately. It’ll just have a different date on it. WordPress withholds the posting of your post until the date and time you specify. So, all my nifty keeno weekends posts? Future posted. Sometimes months in advance. I get in a quiz mood, do a dozen or so, and post them all in one sitting. Same with the LOLCats. I save those in my Reader, then slam up a dozen or 2 on my blog but future post them all. So on weekends, my blog is on auto-pilot and I can sit back and catch up on comments, my Reader, other folks’ blogs, whatever. I set up my holiday posts sometimes months in advance like that too. I know, I’m a bit on the weird side – but it’s cool and that’s why you love me. ;)


WordPress date stampSo here’s how you do it: See that pic over there? See where it says “Publish Immediately”? That’s where you can alter your date and time stamp in WordPress. You can pick any date you want and any time you want. You can even “past post” a post, too. WordPress will simply put up your post and pretend that you really did post it in 2005, or whenever you told it. WordPress won’t tell. When you future post, WordPress keeps it in your posts list as “scheduled posts.”


Here’s a secret – I am never up at the crack of dawn to get my post up. And I never use WordPress to publish my posts either.


I use an amazing little tool called Windows Live Writer. I love this program so much and praise it so highly you’d think I worked for Microsoft. And pretty much anything that WordPress does – as far as posts are concerned, Live Writer does it too. Now, you can’t do anything pertaining to adjusting – say, your side bar – in Live Writer. Live Writer is only concerned with posts. You can add pictures, video, links, photo albums, tables, maps, tons of stuff. See my little signature down there? Saved as a text template in Live Writer. Two clicks and it’s in my post. Easy peasy. The table I use on my football blog is saved as a text template in Live Writer too, so I don’t have to make a new one every week.


Live Writer also has a drafts feature so if you get an idea for a post but can’t finish it in time, you can save the draft. And since Live Writer is an offline utility, you can create tons and tons of posts while you are offline, and then publish them to your blog once you do get online. Live Writer date stampSee the method to my madness? During this time when I don’t have an Internet connection of my own, one that is spotty at best, I can write my posts ahead of time and then when I do finally get a connection, it’s much faster to hit publish than it is to try and type up a whole post when I may lose my connection any moment. Here’s what the date scheduler looks like in Live Writer. It sits in the lower right corner.


Another neat feature that Live Writer has is a saved link directory. So, you can save a link and then whenever you type that word or phrase, Live Writer will automatically do the linking for you so you don’t have to do it every time.


You can add multiple blogs – for instance, Darc and I both have multiple blogs set up on this computer’s Live Writer, and either of us can choose which blog we want to post to. Live Writer saves all our information if we want it to. Oh, and there is also a spell check, and a word count utility. Plus, Live Writer has a big gallery online that has lots of plug-ins you can get to add to your Live Writer and make it more personalized to suit your particular needs.


Also, I like to adjust my blog font. I can do that in Live Writer, but not on WordPress. Just an FYI, there. :)


Now, say you’re browsing online – using your FireFox browser naturally. And you come across something that you really want to blog about. You can highlight some text – if you want, if not that’s okay too – and then click on your handy dandy “I want to blog about this in Live Writer” link that you have in your browser. If you highlight text, that text will automatically show up in the blog post. Otherwise, just the link to the article will show up. Must have FireFox, Grasshopper. :)


If you don’t want to use Live Writer though – I have no idea why but I suppose some theoretical reason could possibly exist – but let’s just say for the sake of argument that you can’t or won’t use Live Writer. You can browse through the FireFox Add-ons and look for ScribeFire. Well, you don’t need to browse now, since I gave you the link. ScribeFire has lots of useful features, but it sits exclusively IN your FireFox browser and can’t be used offline. You can save drafts though, and post to multiple blogs and use pictures and other neat things. ScribeFire tries really hard to be the online version of Live Writer and while it’s an excellent product, it doesn’t do quite as much as Live Writer does. Here’s a picture of what the ScribeFire date modifier looks like. ScribeFire date stampAnd no, you can’t adjust your blog font in ScribeFire. You can adjust your view, but not what actually posts, like you can in Live Writer.


So, there’s some blogging basics for you. Would you believe that 5 years ago I didn’t even know what a blog was? Now you know. :)











Posted in FYI, Reviews Tagged: Blogging, WindowsLiveWriter, WordPress
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Tuesday Tootsies

Tuesday Tootsies: "

At this point, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get a connection long enough or strong enough to be able to post this. We were only able to get online briefly over the weekend and I got a post up for Monday, but since then, no dice. So if you’re reading this on Tuesday, you know we got lucky. :)


Since I don’t have any sort of reliable connection right now, I can’t go out and look for pictures of shoes. So instead I thought I’d focus on feet today, since most of us have them. Look down. See them? Those are feet! And do you know how important your feet are? They carry you any place you want to go. Sure, we use cars mostly now-a-days, but still, your feet get you from car to location and back again – so you get what I’m saying and don’t be a smart-ass here. ;)


Feet are so important and they really need your love and care. I’m not necessarily talking about pedicures and things like that, so guys don’t go freaking out on me. I’m talking about the care of your feet. Quit abusing them. Put them up when you can, take the load off. And even men can enjoy a nice long foot soak in a pan of hot water now and then.


Feet aren’t as ugly as some people make them out to be. Yeah, they’re kind of weird looking, but when you think of how hard they work, they have a perfect design for their job. You take your car in for a tune up, you visit the dentist and the doctor, even the optometrist. So quit ignoring your feet. Pamper them from time to time. You’ll be glad you did. :)



Posted in Shoes Tagged: Feet, Shoes
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