So I have been thinking about buying a new car lately. I have no idea what I want but even the thought of going to a new car store and talking to a salesman makes me irritated. I don't like salesman in general. They annoy me.

I just purchased a new bed set and mattress this weekend from Ashley Furniture and the whole shopping process was just miserable. Ashley was not the first place I looked. It was actually the second. The first furniture store which was a local small business, not a chain, sold low-end furniture. I wanted something cheap because I don't know how long I will be needing this set. So in the cheap furniture store the salesman, probably the owner and looked like Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H, approaches my husband and I and asks us if we need any help. My first response always (and my husbands too) is to say we are just looking. I don't want some stranger hovering around us while we discuss the merits of the item. It is annoying. So the standard response is "We are just looking". That should be translated by Hawkeye as "Get lost!" but it it wasn't and it never is. For some such reason salesmen feel compelled to show you around or tell you how helpful they can be when you are ready to take the plunge and Hawkeye was no different. Eventually, he stopped talking and we went our merry way toward the bed section and looked around. As we were doing this Hawkeye interrupted us, two maybe three times, to ask us if we needed anything. "Yeah, a bat. You got one?" Just once I would like to say that but I didn't, I said we were fine and then moseyed right out the door. Hawkeye looked dejected. Anyway, he shouldn't be surprised because the furniture in the store was junk. How could anyone pay the kind of money they were asking for furniture that is made of MDF?

So we went around the corner to Ashley. I didn't want to go there because I figure everything would be too expensive. Plus I knew I would like it all and that is dangerous. But my husband said we might as well look since we are right around the corner. He was right as usual. They were having a sale. I ended up getting something there for about the same price as the cheap furniture store. Still, the salesmen were pesky and there was more of them. As soon as we walked in the door, Maude (Beatrice Arthur) from Maude accosts us. We deliver the standard line. She backs off. Thankfully. We look around a bit and pass Maude again and she asks us the same thing. It has been maybe three minutes since she received the first brush off so I guess another brush off was needed and she got one. She backs off again. Two and a half minutes later a salesman who looks like Gilligan from Gilligan's Island approaches us and starts talking about the merits of a bed set we were standing in front of. My husband and I just said to each other that the set look horrible when Gilligan approached us. He launches right in and tells us that the atrocious looking furniture is made of hardwood and is constructed using several different types of dovetailing. He pulls a drawer out to show us. I have a glazed look on my face. My husband is trying to look interested. He talks about this monstrosity for five minutes before he asks us if we are interested in purchasing it. I said I didn't like the way it looks.

Gilligan leaves, defeated.

We move on. Maude asks us again if we are finding what we are looking for. (No, do you have a bat?) We are polite, though, and say we are fine. We continue in our journey for a minute or two at which point we were greeted by a salesman who looked like Major Roger Healey from I dream of Jeannie. He was a laid back sort of fella and he graciously tried to encourage us to buy several things in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. He was funny but he was a salesman so I knew it was a trick. He didn't hover, though, and that was good. Maude probably came by one more time. Anyway I landed on a bed set that I wanted and Roger was on it like a dog in heat. Still in the end I felt like I got a good deal and I got to leave with my dignity intact. Maude looked perturbed when I walked out the door with a sales receipt in my hand. I felt satisfaction seeing the look on her face.

So that was my weekend with 60's & 70's TV show actors.

Now I am thinking about buying a car and car salesmen are the worst!!! Mind you, my husband is a car salesman and I still feel this way. Hell, he feels this way. I must be crazy. I am totally whacked for even considering it.

Here is a funny video of the Badger Car salesman ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-SK1-iILlY

A couple of my favorites:

-------
Customer: "I like the car a lot. How much wiggle room do we got on the price?"

Badger Salesman: "Wiggle room? I'll show you wiggle room. Wigga Wigga Wa Wigga Wigga Wa ooh ah uh hoo Wigga Wigga Wo" *shaking hips*

--------
Female Customer: "Ah, Yeah, I am interested in this SUV"

Badger Salesman: "As soon as your husband gets here, I will be more than happy to show you all the features"

Female Customer: "Ah, actually, it's for me"

Badger Salesman: "Well, then no need lookin under the hood. [inside the car] Ah, well. Here is were the cup holders are. And this is the rear view mirror. That's where you can put on your make-up. And this is the steering wheel here. It's whatcha use to drive with. [woman customer walks away] Hey honey, come on back here."

--------

Yeah, so why am I thinking of buying a new car?

Oh Yeah, I'm whacked.




**************************************************
Oh, look at the wonderful merit badge I received from Ariana

"For raising the bar and breaking the curve with your outstanding achievements in adequacy And commiserating with the rest of us Corporate America working slobs."




I am so proud of my adequacy!!





 

My mind has been so caught up with the politics of work, home, the presidential candidates, and the economy that I total spaced thanking the Anonymous person who paid for a mini-port raid from

ID: 1393789   (Rated: ASR) Lornda's Mini Port Raid  Exclusive to 'The Classic Story Contest', and offered as a prize in site activities. by Lornda

So thank you Anonymous. {e:gratitude} It was greatly appreciated and it came as a pleasant surprise.


 

So I posted Obama hate videos in yesterday's blog and received no comments. That was an interesting experiment. Of course I never said that I agreed or disagreed the the assertions of the video's. I just thought that they were interesting assertions. It is amazing how anything can be interpreted in whatever fashion that suits the interpreter.

Language is such a funny thing. Its sole purpose is to facilitate communication but it is the one thing that can so easily distort what is trying to be communicated. As writers we have to learn to use language expertly in order to convey the proper images to our reader. It is a hard thing to learn. It seems, though, that when using language to deceive it is not a hard thing to learn because people learn it from the time that they are toddlers.

Speaking of toddlers. It is also interesting that people think that young kids are so innocent when really what they mean is they are naive.

Speaking of naivety, why when people get married do they think they will stay married forever when all evidence points to the exact opposite conclusion?

I am rambling today because my mind is fried. I have been doing QA, UAT, bug investigations, and attending too many meetings so my brain is on auto pilot. Or maybe, auto pilot has not been deployed and my brain is running amuck.

Who knows. Surely not me. I am the one run amuck.


 

Obama and his cronies (Dems) responsible for our current economic crisis?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozFhWTfO8YQ

Interesting tidbits from these two video's:

Obama was at the head of the line to encourage sub-prime loans.

Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac lined Obama's pockets and encouraged banks to give sub-prime loans because they would guarantee them.

Citibank was sued for not giving sub-prime loans and who was the lawyer suing Citibank? ... Obama

Interesting

 

I am back to work today. blah. Yesterday was enjoyable. I only attended a couple meetings so I guess I didn't really have the whole day off. My husband and I lazed around the house in our robes. We did absolutely nothing of value which is very hard for my husband. He needs to be doing some project or another to feel useful but yesterday he was content to hang out with me all day. I have no need to feel useful at all so lying around the house amounts to a perfectly acceptable way to spend a day. I love those kinds of days when it is really rainy or snowy outside. I love to sit by the window and read a book while I watch the weather do what it does. It is very relaxing like watching fish swim around in a tank.

Well today I have been to a bazillion meetings, sent just as many emails, and set up more meetings for me and others to attend for the rest of the week. Seems like my job is just to attend meetings and make decisions for other people to execute on. I really produce no tangible work myself. Hmmm, maybe I am a Director and don't know it. Well I know this, I am not being paid like a director.

Now, my next steps are to get some reviewing done here on WDC. I am so behind. Arrgggh


 

SO I am playing hooky from work today at my husband's request. This is a first that I can remember. I don't know what to do with myself on a Monday when I am not at work so I am lying in bed with my husband sleeping next to me typing a blog entry using my iPhone. It is 10:22am and I am still in bed. Blah. I think the next step is breakfast. Oh and I ckecked my stock prices while lying here in bed and they are up but my stock is still worthless. I also read some blogs here on WDC using my iphone. Shoot with this thing I don't even have to get out of bed to do all my normal activities. Now all I need to do is connect my phone to my work VPN and I can work from bed too. Playing hooky can be nice sometimes. I should do it more often.

 

....to watch my stocks plummet so far down I can no longer see them. Fact is, I don't want to see them because they have become ugly. I used to love my pretty stocks. I used to log onto my portfolio and gaze wondrously at what I saw there. My heart warmed at the sight. Ahhhh, security, isn't it a grand thing my heart would say to itself. My eyes would bat puppy dog style at the screen and I would reluctantly log off but the warm glow would persist. Now I long for those days.

It's a problem that most everyone has now so I am just writing this to commiserate with the rest of the world.

And just to let you know, I am not panicking. No, really, I'm not.

On a side note, I wish I had a ton of cash liquid because I would start buying stock from some of the more stable companies. It's a blue light special out there folks. The rising panic is a rich man's dream.




 

So I bought my new phone and it went pretty quick. The AT&T store I went too was well run. I walked in the door and I had someone helping me immediately. The sales person who helped me was very friendly and knowledgeable but it still cost me an arm and a leg. I bought an iPhone and I love it. Everything is so well thought out and it super easy to learn to use it. The whole process took about a half hour. Pretty quick compared to other experiences.

Today I decided to get a couple accessories so I went to the apple store. I walked in the door and was greeted by a young guy, he helped me find what I was looking for, and then proceeded to ring up my purchases using a hand held device. I was in and out of the store in five minutes!!!

If Apple ran the world, the world would be a well run and a very convenient place albeit expensive.


 

So I am super frustrated with my blackberry. Somehow the plug is not connecting to the phone so it wont charge in the normal fashion. You know the fashion in which you grab the plug that is lying on your night stand, plug the thing into your phone, set your phone on the night stand, go to sleep, wake up and, surprise!, your phone is fully charged. It is amazing how efficient the normal fashion is.

But no. I don't get the normal fashion. I get the "lets play twister and then I'll think about charging" fashion. So twister involves holding the phone in front of me, tilt it this way and that and this might include contortion on my part until I see the little plug symbol appear on the screen and then I stand very very still for about an hour. I have actually done this in the car while driving in bumper to bumper traffic. There I am, holding my phone in the air at an odd angle which, I have to add, is not very comfortable while navigating with my other and and trying not to hit the break too hard because it might cause my phone to move. It's torture!

Now after dealing with this for about a month my phone has gotten to the point where it is not satisfied with twister anymore. It just out right refuses to connect to the plug! Now that leads me to my next frustration, having to purchase another phone. I hate purchasing cell phones and cell phone services. It is worse than buying a new car or taking your car to the shop. In all three cases it feels like you are being raped but cell phone salesman have it down to a science. The science is the two year contract you have to enter into if you want a good deal on a phone so this ensures that the freshly raped feeling lasts for the entire two years.

Fact is, my blackberry subscription hasn't reached its two years yet. The contract doesn't end until Jan 09. So not only do I still feel raped from my last encounter with the cell phone salesman, now I have to go back and have him tell me that I don't qualify for any discounts on any phones because my freshly raped feeling hasn't expired yet. I am not eligible for new rape, I have to continue with the old rape which means I have to pay a stupidly high price for whatever phones they have. So now my old rape has turned in to something even worse, old rape with new torture.

But I am backed into a corner. I need a phone. I think I am going to get an iphone. I hope this isn't a bad decision. So now I am off to receive my torture.



 

You know it is breast cancer month. You can tell by all the pink things and the advertisements for pink things. You know what I find really gross. The Yoplait Save Lids to Save Lives program. In this program Yoplait donates ten cents for every pink lid you mail back to them to the Susan G. Komen foundation. When advertising this program the commercial depicts a very nice looking lady pulling the lid off the yogurt and licking the underside of the lid and then this nice looking lady places the freshly licked lid into an envelope.

Now I am feeling sorry for the poor person who has to open these envelopes and count the freshly licked lids. ewwww! Gross! I wouldn't want to touch other people's lick. Yuck!



http://www.yoplait.com/slsl/
http://cms.komen.org/komen/index.htm
 

I was watching television today and a commercial came on for a type of life insurance that will pay funeral costs and other such stuff in case of your demise. The commercial led in with:

"Where you born between 1923 and 1968 and do you need peace of mind....blah blah blah"

Now lets talk about the age range that constitutes 1923 to 1968. That's kinda broad don't you think? Well I think so. What I hate most is my birth year is within that range and I don't think that I should be associated with someone who was born in 1923. I really didn't think I would have someone trying to sell me funeral insurance when I was forty. I am also thinking that someone who is forty doesn't have the same concerns of someone who is seventy-five but maybe I am wrong.

Damn, I don't want to be wrong.
 

ob·fus·cate [ob-fuh-skeyt, ob-fuhs-keyt]
–verb (used with object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.
1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy.
2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.
3. to darken.



I don't know if any of you watch House. I do every week. This week House solved a problem by determining that something was not something. It started with House getting an epiphany from his PI, when he asks him if he wants to be friends. The PI tells him no, because he's afraid of him. He adds that friends are friends and customers are customers, everything else is everything else and nothing is nothing. This leads House to conclude that cancer is not cancer and brain is not brain. And based on this conclusion he realized that the brain scan of the patient that came back normal shouldn't be normal which meant that it was not normal. The patient ended up having a brain tumor that was masking itself as brain.

The whole thing is kinda like the world we are living in right now. You know, the bail-out that is not a bail-out because it is providing help that is not help. We may elect a president that will not be president because he is about ready to kick the bucket any day now which means the vice president will not be vice president because she will now be president. This will lead to a government that is not a government.

So when you find out that a separation is not a separation what should you do? How do I solve a problem that is not a problem?

sep·a·ra·tion  [sep-uh-rey-shuhn]
–noun
1.	an act or instance of separating or the state of being separated.
2.	a place, line, or point of parting.
3.	a gap, hole, rent, or the like.
4.	something that separates or divides.
5.	Law.
        a.	cessation of conjugal cohabitation, as by mutual consent.
        b.	judicial separation.
6.	Aerospace. the time or act of releasing a burned-out stage of a rocket or missile from the remainder.
7.	Photography. separation negative.

So I am truly a Hum-bug type person when it comes to Halloween. Heck, I am like that with any type of religious festival in general. The whole idea that a person could dress up in a costume to confuse the an evil spirit is ludicrous. It's right up there with wind chimes which are believed to attract kind spirits and frighten away evil ones.

Think about it. If you were an evil spirit would you be frightened by a wind chime or a costume for that matter? Are evil spirits dumb? I think not. I think we are comic relief for them.

Speaking of comic relief. I was in London last year during Halloween and on Halloween night my friend and I went to Leicester Square to eat dinner. We went to a nice Italian restaurant. London has the best restaurants, by the way. Anyway, while we were eating our very nice dinner, we spotted outside the window a very large group of Halloweeners in costume and on roller skates. It was like a roller parade but it didn't last long. It was very funny. Here we were in this cute little restaurant having a relaxing dinner and outside, at regular intervals, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, fairies, snow white, and skeletons pass by very fast. It was kinda surreal.

Back to the rant. The thing I hate most about Halloween, the kids! BAH HUMBUG. Annoying little creatures coming to your door in the early hours of the night.


Random History of Halloween video: http://www.history.com/video.do?name=halloween



 

I found this website that posts classic short stories. It has some of my favorites on it like:

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,
Hills Like White Elephants, and
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway
The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
First Confession by Frank O'Connor
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/shortstories/index.html

Now I have another reason to hang out on the internet for too long
 

This is is really cool video.

http://graphjam.com/2008/09/29/song-chart-memes-life-in-graphs/



This is what it taught me:


The Pope, Art, and DVD's have on thing in common. That all reproduction is prohibited. (Although, in the Pope's case I believe it is only prohibited if you are unmarried)

There are three types of virgins

A - Virgins by choice
B- Virgins by poor social skills
C- Those that belong in B but refuse to admit it


And lastly, it gave me a clear explanation of why I drink.

Now life is complete. I have answers to everything.
 

"Invalid Item"  Prompt:

** #1394957 Not An Image **


Interesting picture,huh? Its like antler art or the creature from Spider-man 3 surrounding a plasma sphere. Do you ever wonder what we would look like if we could see ourselves as energy. That's what we are, organized energy. All those little atoms inside us making us take up space. I wonder if our energy selves would look like the inside of a plasma sphere. You know, like the Ancients on Stargate. They were kinda like that, the inside of a plasma sphere but only one color, milky white. I really love Stargate. It is one of my favorite sci-fi shows. I watched nearly every episode but lost interest when Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver) left. When Stargate first started, I was appalled that they hired MacGyver for the part of Jack O'Neil. How in the world can MacGyver's Jack O'Neil live up to Kurt Russell's Jack O'Neil? Impossible! But I was won over and eventually came to the conclusion that Richard Dean Anderson was the one that held the show together. He stopped being MacGyver to me after the first season of Stargate. My problem, in the beginning, was I could only see him as the MacGyver character because he did it so well. I am sure I watched almost all the MacGyver episodes. It was an interesting show. Silly, but interesting. I watched it much to my own dismay. I was compelled to watch it just to see what he would come up with next. The man could defuse a bomb with his dirty socks and earwax. Now, the word 'MacGyver' actually has its own meaning. It means jury-rigging something in order to solve a problem. Imagine that, a silly show I watched on channel seven every week spawned a new word. Speaking of channel seven, there were other shows on that channel around the same time (1985-ish) that I watched. Moonlighting with Bruce Willis being one of them. I think Moonlighting was where Bruce really got his start. I don't remember anything he did prior to that. I think he did the first Die Hard movie while he was on that show. Moonlighting was a fun. Heck, Bruce Willis is fun. He is just as sexy now as he was back then. Moonlighting reminded me a bit of Remington Steele with Pierce Brosnan. Brosnon doesn't do a bad sexy either. I watched every episode of Steele but you can't count that against me because I was young and impressionable. Plus, what else was there to watch. We didn't have as many channels back then as we do now. I am not even sure that my parents had cable at that time. When I was really young, we only had four channels on VHF and one on UHF (if you are too young to know what that is, forget about it, it's not important). Just think, only four channels, two local papers (The Washington Post and the Free Lance Star), and NO INTERNET....talk about information starvation. If you wanted a different point of view on something, you had to move.

So I can go on with this stream-of-consciousness thing forever. I was just wondering if this is what the picture means when it says "Inner thoughts to ensnare the soul". Folks, what you just read is an example of my inner thoughts on any given day. These thoughts don't include the ones where I tell myself that I look terrible, I suck at writing, I am a horrible wife/ mother/friend or the ones where I tell myself that I am great, everybody must love me, my husband can't live without me, and I look spectacular today. Is my soul ensnared? Probably.

P.S. You just learned that I think that antler art is distantly related to information starvation. Torture is right!

 

So earlybird gave no prompt for today's "Invalid Item" .

Oh Boy. He's done thrown a monkey wrench into this whole process. I was just getting on a roll here. What am I to do? Does this mean I have to come up with a subject all on my own? Eeeegaadds. I have to use my brain??? No! Unfair! I call FOUL!

I find idea generating the hardest thing to do. Once I have an idea, I am a whiz at whipping something up with that idea. I believe that most writers are challenged with coming up with new ideas or old ones with a fresh twist and I am no different. It's hard for me.

When an idea strikes, I try not to reject it off hand. I think it is a bad habit that a writer can get into, rejecting ideas before they have a chance to grow. Yeah, some ideas just suck but maybe if you let them bake for a while they wont suck so bad. I believe that writers should embrace ideas, nurture ideas, make them grow. An idea may not be good enough for the main plot but is it good enough for a subplot? Maybe if you look at the idea from a different angle it will give you another idea. Ideas can grow, morph into something wonderful, and feed off each other. They have a life of their own if you let them live and mature a bit. I try to write all the ideas down in a notebook. I also have a document on my computer where I jot down my ideas and since signing up on WDC I use the note pad. I even put ideas on sticky notes. I know, I know, I just said I have trouble coming up with ideas and yet I have them stashed everywhere. Well, I never said I look at them again.

Yeah that is another problem I have.....going back and revisiting old ideas. I do sometimes when I am trying to come up with book ideas but I never think to do it for blogging. If I come up with an idea for a blog I usually blog about it right away. So it is written down but it is all used up. Blogging is a different animal altogether. Coming up with fresh, interesting ideas everyday is something I am struggling with. That is why I joined the "Invalid Item" . I am having trouble finding anything to say. Actually I think I touched on the subject of having nothing to write about in my blog entry "Self Discovery" 

On the other hand, blogging is good because it keeps the writing muscles limber. You know the old adage, a writer should write everyday. What better way to do that then blogging?

Do you have trouble coming up with ideas for your blogs?

 

Follow the 80/20 rule

“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.”

-- Nido Qubein


The 80/20 rule says that on a list of 10 tasks, only 2 of those tasks will return 80% of the value of the entire list. Look at your ‘to do’ list for today. Which tasks are directly related to what you most want in life? Find the 2 high value items on your list and tackle them first. These tasks are the ones that really move us forward.

Many of us actively avoid the top 2 priorities because they are more challenging than the rest. If they are to lead us to worthy goals, they are undoubtedly asking us to move into new territory in thinking and acting, and this can be scary. But this is also REWARDING

----------------------------------------

Two Questions:

Priorities? What if you don't have priorities? My highest priority is my family or the squeaky wheel. Whatever the squeaky wheel is I will attend to it as long as it doesn't interfere with my family.

Lists? What happens when you don't have a to-do list? I rarely make lists for myself. Generally everything that I have to do is contained in my brain. I choose to do only the things that are getting near their deadline and only if I think they are important regardless of their deadline. If you want me to do something, it is advantageous that you express its importance and convince me of it. Because if I am not convinced then it doesn't get done. My brain doesn't offer if up as something that needs to get done. Of course even if you convince me that something is important but don't provide a deadline, I still will not do it. Key to making Ellee accomplish something... Importance and Deadline. One without the other does not work so hence neither do I.

My thoughts on deadlines (Well not really my thoughts. I guess I didn't feel it important enough to come up with something original but why should I when someone has already done if for me? ):

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." ~ Douglas Adams

(I love that quote!)

Now for how I make decisions on what needs to get done. I found this creed online and I love it. Its funny but what makes it funny is it is so accurate. It works for me. I am a procrastinator thru and thru....

    The Procrastinator's Creed:

       1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

       2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.

       3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

       4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from
           missing them.

       5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from 
           my obligations.

       6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

       7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesimally small, is not exactly zero.

       8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.

       9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

      10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

      11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the 
           work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

      12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.

      13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

      14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it
           organized.

    ~Unknown

"There are three types of real friends: Those that roll on the floor laughing with you, those that roll on the floor laughing at you, and those that cause you to roll on the floor laughing." By busy, taking a break from WDC

Most of my friends here in WDC fall into all those categories above. I love having friends around me that make me laugh and I love making my friends laugh (although I am not really a funny person. Sometimes I can say something funny. Its rare but it happens). I have the most obnoxiously loud laugh. It bursts from my throat as if it can't wait to escape and once I start, its really hard to get me to stop. It's addictive. Laughing makes me feel good even if I am sad or depressed. I seek out laughter every day even while I am at work.

I know I shouldn't surf the net while at work but I love perking up my day. So the below sites I visit every day for a laugh. Sometimes, in my cube at work, I literally laugh out load when reading these sites. Its so hard to be dignified when you are snorting.

These writers have a tendency to make me laugh and I never fail to read their blogs everyday. (every day that they post that is)

"Complex Numbers" 
"Invalid Item" 
"Something Borrowed" 
"Invalid Item" 
"Invalid Item" 

and then there are always these as a back up:

http://engrishfunny.com/
http://failblog.org/
http://punditkitchen.com/
http://icanhascheezburger.com/
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/


I am sure that surrounding myself with people that make me laugh is no mistake. Like I said it makes me feel good. It makes everyone feel good. And according to the article The Stress Management and Health Benefits of Laughter: The Laughing Cure

Research has shown health benefits of laughter ranging from strengthening the immune system to reducing food cravings to increasing one's threshold for pain. There's even an emerging therapeutic field known as humor therapy to help people heal more quickly, among other things. Humor also has several important stress relieving benefits:

Distraction: Laughter brings the focus away from anger, guilt, stress and negative emotions in a more beneficial way than other mere distractions.

Hormones: Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), dopamine and growth hormone. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins, and neurotransmitters. Laughter increases the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T cells. All this means a stronger immune system, as well as fewer physical effects of stress.

http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/laughter.htm


No wonder I read these things at work. Maybe my friends make me more successful at work. Maybe they melt the stress right off of me and that makes me better at what I do. Maybe I should thank them for that super-sweet raise and the knock-your-socks-off bonus I got this year.

I tip my hat to:

Z.˚rz
Robert Waltz
L. D. Dailey
The Literary Penguin
Ariana

Thanks!

"Day 4 Writing Challenge"  
"Invalid Item"