Putting authors on blast

Matt and I just spent a night at his mom’s. I love going there because there are lots of books for me to read. She (Margie) and her daughter (Maggie) are into reading books just like Matt and I. It was just funny how we were all in the same room with our noses in different books. I just got done reading a book by James Patterson titled “The Quickie” This was the same book I saw at Barnes & Nobles and passed over with good reason (in hindsight). Normally, I love reading books by James Patterson because he writes fast-paced action books. Hell, one of his books made it into a famous Hollywood Blockbuster (Along came a spider). In this book, he seriously disappointed me. I thought it would get better with each chapter, but I only got more disgusted. Here’s the scenario: a female cop spots her husband with a PYT (pretty young thing). She assumes the worst and decides that tit-for-tat is better instead of direct confrontation. She picks a fellow cop to do the honors of dishonoring her marriage bed and becomes witness to said cop’s brutal death … [spoiler alert] Continue reading Putting authors on blast

Shaken by the Storm of the Century

I just got done watching a movie adaptation of a book penned by Steven King. If you are Stephen King buff, chills are probably making their way down your spine. The name of this movie is “Storm of the Century” and it made me alternately sad and pissed. I’ll try to express my thoughts on the movie without thoroughly spoiling the movie. For me, this movie was about Christianity and what it means to be a true christian. I’ll emphasize the ‘true’ part because things somehow fly out of the window when you are facing a test of fire. Which is what the people of Little Tall Island were facing. As you can probably guess, the folk of Little Tall Island were effectively cut off from civilization by a freak storm that had the energy to even destroy their lighthouse. The movie begins with a scene where a wizened old lady answers her doorbell to face her death at the hand on a man called Andre Linoge. He is eventually apprehended by the local constable but he leaves a message that serves as his mantra throughout the movie: “Give me what I want, and I’ll go away.” *breathe*

He kills Island folk and each time, leaves his calling sign “Give me what I want, and I’ll go away.” Each time, a death is discovered, a little piece of the puzzle falls into place about discovering what kind of a being Mr. Linoge is. After at least 4 deaths, he eventually tells them what he wants. It’s an unconscionable request and one that made me see red. The saddest part of the movie was that the townsfolk were willing to go ahead because they were frightened. They claimed that they didn’t have any choice, but in fact, there were two other choices that we, as humans, are unwilling to face i.e. death for principle. I would have cried if I wasn’t so angry at myself and the human race for being so weak. Okay, I’ll go ahead and say what he wanted. He wanted one of the townsfolk 8 children to raise as his own i.e. teach his devilish tricks. No pun intended. The town constable sees Mr. Linoge for what he is i.e. a lying murderer who is not of this world. However, he tries in vain to convince the townsfolk that they shouldn’t give up a children to this beast. Nevertheless, you can guess what they did: save their lives and gave up one child. And guess whose child got picked? Isn’t fate a bitch sometimes? Continue reading Shaken by the Storm of the Century

Getting hits

Well, it hasn’t been two days since I put my poems and other stuff up. I’m already getting some hits and I hope they keep coming in to fill my adsense coffers! πŸ˜€ I used to be on the first page (1st or 2nd link actually) of Google SERPs (search engine results pages) for a good bit of search terms like “figurative poems”. Hell, I’m still on the damned first page (about 5 results down)!!  Anyhow, after my site went down, my page ranks went down with them too. I didn’t put much up while I pondered on what to do with my site and the best way to display my content. Well, as you may know, I tried Drupal and got tired of having to need a module to do one thing or the other. The process of installing and working with modules is not very smooth either so I have returned back to my WordPress roots. WordPress isn’t perfect either as evinced with the trouble I had when I merely had a page with really long content. The only reason I’m keeping WordPress is because of its popularity ergo I’ll definitely find a way to retrieve my data from this site when/if it goes down or if I get sick of using WordPress.

In other news, I’ve been on pins and needles for the past week. It doesn’t seem to be letting up. I’ve found a couple of interesting jobs that come Monday, I will be applying for.  This month is almost at the halfway point and I’ve got so much to be thankful for. Labor Day is coming up soon and we’ll be doing some cool things (hopefully and if everyone can coordinate their schedules). We’re also planning on getting the heck out of Athens next week and just being around family. I am definitely not in the mood to hang out at the house if I can help it. lol.

I don’t want to wait in vain…

I ripped this title from Maxi Priest’s song “Waiting in Vain.” I’m applying it to my job hunt. I’m currently at the 2nd stage where ones references are being checked out, etc. It’s a very interesting process and if one doesn’t have the right attitude, very disheartening. I recently fell into the comparison trap that sends me into the doldrums and I am just snapping out of it. You know, the one where you check up on old acquaintances and see the awesome strides they’ve taken. You are naturally excited and freaking proud of them. However, the point I’m trying to make it that’s their path. I’ve taken a very different route and the key thing I know is that I am happy. Hell, I was in that fast lane before and it didn’t do wonders for me. I recently rekindled relations with an old college professor who could totally relate to the events that have happened in my life. I turned 22 this year and I’ve got a veritable garden of forking paths in front of me. The chess pieces are falling into place and I should be ashamed for even griping. So, I’m toasting to my renewed future. To finding more adventures with my husband. To being the best at whatever it is I am doing. And being at peace with myself. I wish that on you too. For kicks, I just picked this off someone’s wall and it reads: “Do what feels right for yourself. ‘Cause in the end all you have is your damn self.” Let me leave with the video of Maxi Priest ft. Lee Ritenour.

Rolling in…

Drum roll please, my EAD card arrived in the mail ending much speculation. πŸ™‚ I think the USCIS site may have had some computer glitches because I knew my card was in production long before I got another email saying that the application had been approved. Que? Well, no questions will be asked by this gal over here. In other news, I got a long awaited refund (way back from 2005) from the State. Unbelievable. The best thing of it was how I discovered that the government was owing me money. I did a google search of my name and found my name on a list of unclaimed refunds. I checked up on it and sure enough, the attendant confirmed that there was a check with my name on it! I had moved and I think it’s the USPS’s policy to not forward sensitive materials like checks. Understandably so. In any case, it couldn’t have come at a better period. My immediate financial goal is to get rid of my secured credit card from a big and evil bank. I’ve been with them for over a year now and you’d think that I’d be eligible to be converted to a ‘regular’ credit card. The main reason I’d like that is for me to be able to get back my $99 deposit. I was desperately short on funds and I needed the break. Several major credit card companies turned me down because I didn’t have any credit which is just as bad as having bad credit. My credit score right now is listed as fair which is not stellar, but I’ll live with it. I’ve just been a year into the credit building process so it’ll be interesting to see how that score changes.

In other news, I’ve been tinkering with Photoshop and just learnt how to add/remove colors (I use that very loosely) from photos. By that, I mean I can make one of those cool pictures where the background is black/white and one object or several objects are in colors and vice versa. I’ll be putting some of my mashups up. In the meantime, stay cool. Temperatures over here have hit the 100s. Crazy. Phew!

Site updates

Well, as you probably know now, I’ve decorated my site with some hopefully pertinent Google adsense adverts. I’ve tried to make them as non-intrusive as possible, but your feedback will be most appreciated. Gracias. πŸ™‚ I’ve also decided to host my poems on this same place and in the process of painstakingly creating pages for all my old poems. It’s a task of love so don’t feel bad for me. lol. It just occurred to me that I should simply just publish all my stuff from WordPress. So, I’ll be hosting everything on this portal. No more of that pesky sub-domain nonsense till I have a concrete plan in mind. In other news, something really cool happened to us i.e. our hard work got rewarded. Now, all we can do is wait. As my people say, “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.” ‘Nuff said. No work yet on the job front although things look promising. Matt said something that struck me especially as I’ve levelled the same criticism at someone else. He said that I needed to let go of my stressors because my person was such that I would find something else to obsess or stress over. *sigh* He’s a tad too intuitive sometimes. Oh well, wish me luck in my jobhunt and

Nothing much

Well, I’ll be attending a seminar today on how to make money online. It should be interesting. Paul’s actually thinking of doing stuff like eBay power-selling because he’s got a ton of stuff that he could do without that’s of good quality. Me, I think I’ll stick to whatever my day job is, but I won’t mind some passive income. If (hopefully, it’s a when) I get this job I’m angling for, it’ll make for a nice pile of money at the end. In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out how in blazes I can get some adsense up on my blog! I’m $30 shy of payday and feel free to click away on ads you see anywhere on my site that are of interest/use to you.