Christmas Eve in SamSpace

  It's Christmas Eve. 

I blog now, but in social networking of Christmas Past, I remember that after days of diligently Googling, I mastered the art of cutting and pasting HTML code into the "About Me" box of MySpace.  I can write some simple HTML unassisted by any major search engines.  For example, I know that body's must be followed by /body's and that the command "font face =" works much better at making your webpage prettier than does sacrificing an old typewriter to the computer gods.  Still, there are great volumes of HTML that doesn't look a whole lot like English to me. 

Take for instance, "navbar hover."  Is that actual code?  Probably not, but I found it in the About Me box, so I'm running with it.  For some reason, the phrase fascinated me.  Why?  Well, let me put it this way:  Some of the certifiably oddball things that pop into my head and fall out of my mouth often make my wife turn to me and say, "Are you all right?  I mean, really, I think you should be on some sort of maximum strength anti-goober medication, or something."  Hmm. 

Where was I?  Oh yes, "navbar hover."  Okay, so I began to wonder that if it could hover, what would happen if you typed in:

Navbar sit

Or . . .

Navbar play dead

My wife wanted to type in "navbar bite me" but that one made me nervous, especially since the webcam spontaneously activated and started looking around the living room.

            Anyway, it's Christmas Eve.  I'm a little worried.  Not so much recently, but in Christmas Past my son was terrified of Santa Claus.  We have a picture of him sitting on Santa's knee, red faced, and screaming as if the old man had just told him, "Now, this won't hurt a bit."  My wife and I have elected not to tell him that tonight is the annual night that The Claus inevitably prowls around the neighborhoods of the entire planet. 

My wife said, "No, you can't tell our son that an old man with supernatural powers will get inside the house while we are sleeping."

I said, "How about --."

"No," she answered.

"Just that --."

"No."

I smiled and donned my best humble look of innocence.  "I just want to explain to him that Santa Claus will leave behind things -- things that no one knows what they are.  And, that no one will know until the crack of dawn."

My wife crossed her arms and explained to me politely and calmly how my idea needed a little work, and that we should concentrate on heightening the enjoyment of the Yuletide traditions. 

I mean . . . that's not her exact words.  Her exact words were more like, "I know where you sleep."

But I knew what she meant.

How to Paint Conan with Photoshop CS4

Have you seen the 2011 Conan movie yet?  I'd like to.  (I say so, because obviously the title of this tutorial greatly obscures that fact for all but the most Sherlockian minds out there.) 

For this painting, I used a reference image from the movie, but I am not a professional artist.  In fact, I got brave enough to use color for the first time only about 6 months ago.  Mainly, I sketch portraits in graphite, which I have been doing for a couple of years.  You can see an example of a Stephen King sketch I did here.  Everything I know is self-taught from the Web. 

In addition to Photoshop, I am using a 6" Bamboo tablet and stylus.  I just don't have the dexterity to paint with a mouse.  A mouse works great for photo editing, creating vector images, and stealing cheddar, but most digital painters refuse to use anything but a stylus.

I usually start with a gray background.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, it allows me to say, "Look Honey, I started a painting!"  But also, since gray is neutral, it keeps the colors in the foreground from growing too bright or too dull, since a color looks different depending on the values surrounding it.  For example, put a yellow circle on an orange background and it will feel warm without being terribly dramatic.  Put the same yellow on a blue background, and the contrast will almost hurt your eyes.  

On a new layer above the gray, I draw a line.  The line is important, because, once it is done,  I immediately say, "Hey Honey, can you come back and tell me what you think so far?"  It also is the same color blue that real comic book artists use.  There is a part of my brain that thinks that is extremely cool.  And, it has these hairy looking tick marks growing out at specific intervals.  Actually, this is the vertical center line that goes down through the middle of the figure, helping me to see it in 3D.  The tick marks are evenly spaced, marking the brow, the nose, bottom of the chin, collar bones, rib cage, etc.

  See?

Remember two things throughout this tutorial:  Anything can be fixed.  And, you start simple, then keep adding layer upon layer until it looks dense and realistic.  The more detail, the more realistic it looks.  At first, expect a lot of color banding and for the image to look rough.

 

On a layer between the line drawing and the gray background, add color.  For the thrill seekers out there, you can pick whatever colors you want.  It doesn't matter.  In fact, it's fun to glob on something off-the-wall, like teal or chartreuse, and whenever someone walks by to stare, you tell them that it looks just like them. Usually, however, I look for medium skin and hair tones.  Some artists start with the brightest highlights or darkest shadows.  Go with whatever makes you feel most comfortable.  You'll end up at the same place.  Then use the line drawing to start adding some basic shading and highlights.  Don't try to be precise.  That comes later.  We are just pushing around color now.

Hiding the line drawing layer allows you to see that the painting already has begun to take form.  Turn it off or on periodically to keep your bearings, but you will soon see that you don't need it anymore.

At this point, all paintings should vaguely resemble Gene Simmons from Kiss.  I don't care if you are painting Gandhi or a 1971 Chevy Nova.  Trust me, all paintings will look like Gene Simmons at some point.

 

But then Gene will get lost in the details.

The fact that nothing in real life is a single color is probably one of the most complicated steps in painting.  Take Conan's hair for example.  It is supposed to be dark brown, maybe black.  But for it to look realistic, there are many colors in his hair.  I'm not talking about how people may have a few brown hairs, some blond, and a red or two in the same clump.  In this image are black, a dark brick red, beige, gray, white, and even purple (sometimes on the same strand).  In reality, highlights blending into shadow will create these effects, but also most objects reflect everything around them to one degree or another.  His hair is going to reflect his skin tone.  And vice versa.  This is part of what gives an object a 3D illusion.  Also, the lighter the highlight, the more shiny it is.  (His hair is slightly wet.) 

Don't stress over drawing each individual hair, either.  See sections as individual shapes with highlights and shading.  The same is true throughout the image, which is why you can turn it upside down and still paint it accurately.

Smoothing.  The colors may not be blending well yet, especially if you have been painting with the opacity set to 100%.  To eliminate the striping and make the different colors look like a continuous gradient, turn down the opacity of the brush.  The exact percentage will depend on the color combination.  Typically, I will set mine from 10%-15%.  If you are, for example, trying to shade with pure black, though, that might be too high.  You might have to turn it down to 2%-6%.  Experiment.  If it takes too many strokes to see the color show up, increase the opacity.

I try to render a section completely before moving to the next.  That's my personal preference. Different people paint different ways.  Just depends on the artist.  It is a good idea, however, when there are two similar objects, like the eyes, to paint them simultaneously.  Otherwise, your Conan might look like his plastic surgeon was having a bad day.

Zoom in on sections and try to paint everything in detail.  A piece of leather will be as distinctive as a fingerprint, and you should be just as meticulous with it as you are the face.  Some artists tell you not to waste your time with these details.  This is true when a deadline is involved.  But if you are painting without a time constraint, this attention to detail will make a difference.

The last step.  The background only took a few minutes.  I simply took all the colors that were in Conan and arranged them so that the lighter colors were closer to him and darkest fell near the edges.  Then, I used burgundy (which is the darkest shadow in the scarlet cloth at his waist) and made a glaze.  I created a blank layer above all the others and filled it with the burgundy, then turned the layer opacity down to 27%.

Near the middle of the painting, my son came into my office.  I expected him to say something along the lines, "Dad, that is really cool!"  He looked at my computer screen.  I waited.  Finally, he said, "The mouth isn't right." 

What? 

I had been working on it for about two days at this point.  I was crushed.  Then, I reminded myself that my son is six.  Also, he occasionally forgets to use eating utensils, even when foods practically scream for them, like macaroni and cheese or Jello.  This, of course, only made me feel a little better.

Over the next several days, however, I think I made a lot of people uncomfortable when they realized I was staring at their mouths.

The Amazon Current: Writing into the Sunset

If it is not imposing, I wonder whether I may ask about your experience publishing with Amazon.  Well, okay, to be completely honest, what keeps bouncing off my cerebral sidewalls is probably a little more involved than that, because I'm trying to figure something out about myself.  I always do that better on paper than in my head.  But it doesn't work unless I am actually writing to someone.    

I stopped writing.  It was a process that took about a dozen years.

During my early twenties, I wanted to be Stephen King when I grew up, and I kept steam by clutching onto two delusions.  I honestly believed this was a unique dream compared to his few million other fans.  Writing was fun but it involved many painful activities like forming original ideas and actually finishing stories.  Why would anyone want to do that?  Also, I told myself King's success highlighted the typical novelist's evolution, and that making a living writing was nothing like making a living trying to win the lottery.

My writing machine broke a little at a time.  Bits chipped away whenever I thought about -- and resisted answering -- whether I wanted to write or merely wanted to have written.  Then, it broke hard when I finally understood that magazines were not merely fading and midlist authors were not merely becoming extinct.  Almost everyone I knew seemed to enjoy saying, "I hate to read."  They said it with a smirk, because it was now something to be proud of, like perfect teeth.  The new attitude had grown from potential to ubiquitous.  It was here and spoiled and close enough to inhale. 

At that point, I stopped getting annoyed when friends called this a hobby.

Then came Kindle.  I bought one, paid too much, and didn't much like reading on it.  A few months later at Christmas, Amazon announced that Kindle was their best selling product of all time.  Really?  The consumer realizes this thing is for reading, right?  I read an article a couple of days ago that said not only are people reading more but also Amazon's ebook sales were out-performing hardcover sales.  Wow.  That means people are willing to fork over a month's subscription to Netflix just to own the copy of the data of a single book.  There is nothing to thump and smell musty.  Just words. 

Another report said that people were reading more.  Hmm.  Come to think of it, I have been seeing more paperbacks lying around in the break room at work, and on Facebook a whole bunch of my friends now list reading among their activities.  (I hope they have done so with pride and a smirk.)  I think it is more than that, though.  The new delivery system makes reading easier.  I know that whenever I am standing in line at the grocery store or sitting in the doctor's office, I pull out my iPhone and launch the Kindle app.  It's almost instinctive.  In fact, I feel uncomfortable if I don't. 

Today, riding the final leg of the orbit toward my 41st birthday, I have done two things.  I paid the $2.99 to download Stephen King's new novella "Mile 81" onto my Kindle.  Buying short, stand-alone fiction like this makes me wonder whether Amazon has created for new writers a new opportunity filling the space left by all the dead magazines.  The other thing is that I keep looking over all the unfinished purple prose I used to call My Writing.  My hands sit on my lap, fingers drum occasionally and always come to rest at the same angle they do over a keyboard.  Is there really a new appetite for books, something sustainable, do you think?  I feel like Fox Mulder concerning UFOs:  I want to believe.

Yes, of course, I am trying to talk myself into writing again.  I am afraid that there is just a good possibility that I'm wasting my time.  I hope that I am hearing a heartbeat, but the good news might in reality be driven by Stephen King and J.K. Rowling numbers.  The deck is already stacked in their favor.  Maybe the average writer's story, released into the wild, becomes just another bit in a database, an orphan whose creator occasionally looks in on it.

As I said, it doesn't work unless I am writing to someone.  Never has. 

Because then it is just a hobby.

So, have you tried to publish with Amazon?  If so, what was your experience? 

And, more importantly, would you be likely to download a short story or novel by an author you have never heard of?

Spare Time Compass

I have an extra day off from work today, because for some reason, when you resurface a parking lot in 112 degrees and 60% humidity, it doesn't dry overnight.  Go figure. 

So, this is what happens when somebody gives me some free time.

Everybody knows that I want to be Stephen King when I grow up.  ("Sam, tell us one more time, then, why you write a humor blog, and not something... I don't know, scary?")  One of the other things I want to be when I grow up is an artist.  Put a Michael Whelan or Boris Vallejo or Keith Parkinson or Xia Taptara or Feng Zhu work in front of me and my face will melt into a blissful expression that can usually only be recreated with dental anesthetics.

For a couple of years, I actually did quite a bit of graphic design for the casino where I work.  The comments from my superiors ran the gamut from, "That's freakin' classy," to "It looks like a freakin' X-ray."  Regardless of who said them, comments always seemed to involve the adjective freakin'.  I'm not sure why.

Over the past few months, I have been following various tutorials to find out what I don't know that I don't know about art and maybe drop the freakin' meter a couple of degrees.  Of course, I decided that this would a good opportunity to torture my kind readers with a few of my efforts.  Here is one of the results of an anatomy study (my apologies to those of you who have taken anatomy courses and can see how inaccurate this is):

This was done without a reference.  To me, it looks generic, less like a person and more like a mannequin.  For example, compare it to an unfinished sketch I did of Stephen King back in March, where I used a different technique called triangulation.  The reference was a photograph taken by King's wife Tabitha.

What do you think?  I take criticism well.  It's like when my wife slaps my leg.  Because I have had a back injury, I tell her, "Abuse me, I'm numb."  This, of course, is a really stupid thing to say, because if you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know that she takes such comments as a challenge.

Norton 360 v5.0 WINNER!

The Winner of Norton 360 v 5.0 is...

JOURNEY HURST

Congratulations!

Symantec Website

The Second St. Baxter

Have you heard of Fortunately, Unfortunately?  It is a game invented in the 1980s by the National Puzzlers’ League, and I thought it might be fun here to follow whatever zany directions the story might take.  Simply leave your creative additions as a comment, and allow at least one other person to respond before you comment again.  Write an entire paragraph or a single sentence, but just remember that each new paragraph must start with either “Fortunately” or “Unfortunately.” I’ll start the first couple to show you how it works, and then feel free to take it wherever you like.

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The Second St. Baxter

Emma was right – she was always right, dammit – which is why she ignored the Garmin GPS rattling in the cup holder of her candy apple red Ford Escape.  (She pronounced it “Excape” just to annoy Winston.)  

Fortunately, even though Winston complained for the last twelve hours that he had to pee, Emma’s spirits glowed with the bright thoughts of her new job as concierge of the St. Baxter hotel and casino.

Unfortunately, in spite of the GPS pleading with her at least sixteen times over the last couple of hours to turn left at the next exit, Emma trusted her sense of direction, which landed them exactly 106 miles south of their intended destination. They arrived, ironically, at another hotel named the St. Baxter.  Neither Emma nor Winston noticed.  Both thought it peculiar that there appeared to be no casino attached to the hotel, but they would find it even weirder later that night when they discovered that the hotel was infested with flesh-eating phantoms.  The first appeared when Emma opened the front door. The phantom appeared to be a human bellhop standing at least 6 feet, nine inches tall and presently leaping at her.

Sucker Punch: Sam's First Official Movie Review

My wife's and my entertainment choices rarely agree.  For example, she refers to my library as "That crap you read."  It's gotten to the point that I can begin a sentence with, "I like..." and she instinctively shouts, "Crap!"

"But it's--"

"Crap!"

"No, I'm talking about--"

"Crap!"

"Will you listen to me?"

"Crap, crap, crap. Crap. Crap-crap-crap-crap!"

"But--"

"Crap!"

"I--"

"Crap!"

"Tonya likes--"

"Good stuff!"  Then she smiles. 

Okay.  Okay.  In How to Use Lubricant Inappropriately I admitted that occasionally I watch movies that ... um ...  Well, if The Shawshank Redemption is an A movie and Godzilla Versus the Bongo Monster is a B movie, then these would land somewhere around W. 

When I first saw the trailer for Sucker Punch, I was extremely underwhelmed.  I strained at least a dozen brain cells wondering whether somebody unintentionally made a live-action Powerpuff Girls movie.  A few days before the home video release, I saw new trailers.  In these, this pigtailed blonde in a half ninja, half school girl outfit was whipping around a Samurai sword, dodging bullets, and jumping in slow motion.  Part of my brain -- the part that later I inevitably refer to as Temporary Stupidity -- took note of the ka-pows! and shings! and booms!  and made me say, "You know, that kind of looks cool."

And so while everybody else in the world was going to opening night of Harry Potter, I rented Sucker Punch. 

The box claimed it was only 110 minutes long.  I'm pretty sure that was in dog years, though.  The story proved a little bit hard to follow, assuming you measure your "little bits" by the parsec.  I will do my best to recap.

It's a dancin' movie, like Footloose.  But nobody really dances and I suspect Kevin Bacon would have filed for a restraining order if the movie ever wandered within six degrees of separation from him.  Oh sure, every once in a while, Sweet Pea wiggles just a little bit (remember "little bits" are relative here) but it never actually reaches the exuberance of, say, sleepwalking.  But that doesn't matter, because as soon as there is even the slightest chance someone might Vogue, we fly into an extreme close-up of Sweet Pea's eyelashes, which are each just about the same size as the average feather duster.  The angle rotates  to an extreme close-up of her temple, her ear, her blonde pigtail, and the back of her head, where we stop and experience two magical realizations:  we have traveled Somewhere Else, and we are about to begin a mind-boggingly implausible fight scene.

Don't get me wrong, I like to watch an itty bitty Powerpuff Girl slice and dice a 30-feet-tall demon samurai just as much as the next guy.  All the fight scenes are cool.  It would have helped however if they all belonged in the same movie.  Because the next time we get a close-up of her eyelashes we end up on a train shattering shiny robots or in the air popping WWII Zeppelins.

There's Nazis.

And there's steampunk.

And there's robots.

And there's steampunk robot Nazis.

Then, when it's all over and we zoom out from her eyelashes, we're back in the theater and everybody is clapping and telling Sweet Pea what a dancin' prodigy she is.

Oh, and the dancers might be hookers (well, actually love slaves), or they might be patients in a big ole Dr. Frankenstein insane asylum.  The bad guy might be a sleazy wealthy thug packing a tommy gun or he might be sleazy nurse with a key around his neck.  And, the songs are really cool, but they may just be part of the lobotomy.

Either way, my brain hurts.

After the 110 minutes in dog years was over, I realized that the only reason I began watching Sucker Punch was because I was younger and more impressionable then.  I brought the movie back into the living room and set it on top of the These Go Back Tomorrow pile.  

"It was crap, wasn't it?" my wife snickered.

"It was a dancin' movie," I said. "Where everybody was kung fu fighting."

Similar Post(s):

Salem Witch Trial Viewing 

Norton 360 at 20 Paces

NOTE:  The following giveaway ended 

August 1, 2011. 

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IMPORTANT NOTICE:   Added 7/12/2011 @ 1:25 PM CST -- I have just discovered that if you become a follower of my blog and select to follow privately, Blogger not only prevents everyone else from seeing those members, but it also prevents me from seeing them.  I would have no way to know that you have joined the site and consequently would have no way to enter you into the drawing for Norton 360.  The only way I see to resolve this is to ask you to follow publicly.  I was unaware of this when I originally posted the rules.  I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

If you have any other problems, please leave a comment below or email me directly at samrvs2@gmail.com

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When I got home from work, I saw that my copy of Norton 360 Version 5.0 arrived in the mail.  My brain was suddenly flooded with Nerdium Chloride, which scientists have identified as the hormone responsible for compelling people to try to make the word antidisestablishmentarianism longer or to invent high tech double-quilted toilet paper that responds to voice commands.  The effect on me was to focus my brain on a single goal:  "I need a computer!"

I became so excited I stuck the DVD back into the mailbox, hoping it would boot up and begin running a virus scan.  Alas, no.  The only things that happened was the mail courier looked at me the same way the dog does when I ask her to whistle, and he said, "You okay Mr. Current Resident?"  (see Just for the Ell of It) 

"Yep, I just need my computer.  Now."

"Oh...," he said.  "I used to know a guy who kinda felt the same way about a big fuzzy comforter with a stain on it shaped like Utah."  He backed up a couple of steps and moved his mail bag in front of him like a shield.  "So, why don't you just go in the house and maybe lay down for a while?  Take a load off.  And avoid any sharp objects."

I'm pretty sure I haven't actually run since 2003.  Clutching my copy of Norton, I zoomed from my mailbox to my office at about Mach 4.  Immediately, I plopped down in front of my PC and began installing the program.  The splash screen appeared, and I watched the little Norton arrow chase its tail while my brain generated such deep thoughts as "Ohhh, pretty!" and "Yellow!"

Then I realized something terrible.  Something that would endanger this entire digital adventure. 

I had forgotten to uninstall the freebie virus checker and all the anti-malware thingies in my system before installing Norton.  Typically, two competing anti-virus programs get along with each other about like most of the guests on The Jerry Springer Show.  The new application usually notifies the user of compatibility issues with friendly prompts like, "Get that Pokemon-looking, stanky piece of bloatware off my hard drive!"

Norton 360 did not seem to care.

I'm sure that if I had said, "Um, what about the other virus checkers?" Norton would have responded, "Is that what those are?  Are they house broken?  Come here, Freebie! Here boy!  See the spyware?  Sick 'em!  Sick 'em, boy!  Oh, it's so cute."

At this point, I became nervous.  What sort of power had I unleashed into my system?  This was my primary PC, the one hosting my family photos, my stories, my digital paintings, and my complete alphabetized and cross-referenced collection of redundancies, like "armed gunman" and "pink in color (as opposed to pink in height)."  Although, that last one I did back up, because I felt it appropriate to have a copy and a redundant copy.  (When my wife reads that last sentence, she's going to look up at me and say, "You're a dork, Dear.  No, you're a gord -- a Geek, a dORk, and a nerD all rolled into one.")

It was too late, now, though.  Norton reported that the installation was complete.  I quite possibly had just given my innocent computer -- that for years has brought me emails from friends and family and animated GIFs of Hamster Dancing kittens  -- the artificial intelligence to scatter to the four winds every "future plan," "harmful injury," and "hollow tube" that I had ever found.

The Explore button beguiled me, and I did click.

The main interface screen appeared.  I saw that it was divided into four major categories of protection:  World Domination, Download Your Consciousness, Make Google Your Bitch, and Global Thermonuclear War....

Okay, okay, that's not exactly what the screen said.  It was more like:  PC Security, Identity Protection, Backup, and PC Tuneup.  But the idea is that Norton 360 offers powerful tools that are not only easy to use but also go well beyond a simple virus checker.  (Although, I may mention the Download Your Consciousness thing to Symantec, because that would be kind of cool.)

I clicked World Dom...er, I mean PC Security, which opened a menu offering to Run Scans, Manage the Firewall, and launch Norton Insight.  I chose the last one, but I am not sure why.  I really don't like most insights that I receive, like "It's okay to eat one fat-free container of yogurt, but seventeen does not a meal make," or "No, we don't need voice-activated toilet paper."  This was different, though.  Norton Insight gave me a list of all my programs, how much resources each consumed, their threat level to my computer, and how popular they are.  The popularity review I suspect will annoy my programs enough that they will either go into full Jerry Springer mode or maybe stage a West Side Story dance off.  That's okay, though, under PC Tuneup there are enough optimization and cleanup applications to keep the conga lines short and the Cakewalking to a minimum.

There are more scheduled scans and automatic backups and reports and tools and doohickeys than I could possibly cover in one blog entry.  Rest assured, though, that I probably spent hours clicking on every one of them.  In fact, throughout the afternoon, I ignored my wife several times when she stuck her head into my office to say, "I hope by the time company arrives that you have quit repeating, 'That's cool!' and giggling insanely." 

The only negative thing that I can say is that the backup took 3 hours.  I'm pretty sure, however, that Symantec meant for you to backup things like your documents and pictures -- not your entire computer to an external USB drive.  The poor thing did it, though -- all 244 gigabytes of data that it compressed into 94, which I'm pretty sure is roughly equivalent to the human brain section that holds the average person's collective childhood memories.  (I suck at math, though, so I could be a little off on that.)

After it was all over, my computer not only runs faster but identifies whether websites in a browser search are safe before I click on them.  It can even scan my Facebook Wall to make sure the links are safe. 

I am a bit disappointed, though.  I hoped my computer might suddenly become self-aware, and the printer, scanner, and other peripherals split off into Autobots and Decepticons.  Oh well, maybe in Version 6.0.

Oh, and one more thing....

Symantec was nice enough that they did not send me just one copy of Norton 360.  So, because of their generosity I am able to give away Norton 360 Version 5.0 to one of the readers of my blog.  Free!  (And you just thought that coming here was a mostly painless way to kill brain cells.)  It is the full version, works with Windows 7 and XP, comes with a year's subscription, and protects up to 3 computers.  As of this writing, Symantec offers this program for $59.99.

The rules of the giveaway are simple.  You must be a follower of my blog with Google Friend Connect to be eligible.   (Sorry NetworkedBlog followers.)  Just go to the right sidebar on this screen and click the FollowJoin This Site button under the "Follow Sam's Blog" section, and, well, follow the directions.  On August 1, 2011, I will randomly pick a name from my list of followers and announce the winner on this blog.  (My family members are not eligible.)  

NOTE:  The above giveaway ended August 1, 2011. 

Visit the Symantec site and check out Norton 360 All-In-One Security:  www.symantec.com

You will find details and videos about this and all of Symantec's award-winning products.

I encourage you to leave comments.  Let me know whether you like this giveaway, and I might try to make this a recurring feature of this blog. 

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IMPORTANT NOTICE:   Added 7/12/2011 @ 1:25 PM CST -- I have just discovered that if you become a follower of my blog and select to follow privately, Blogger not only prevents everyone else from seeing those members, but it also prevents me from seeing them.  I would have no way to know that you have joined the site and consequently would have no way to enter you into the drawing for Norton 360.  The only way I see to resolve this is to ask you to follow publicly.  I was unaware of this when I originally posted the rules.  I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.


If you have any other problems, please leave a comment below or email me directly at samrvs2@gmail.com



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Leaving Work

I don't know...is it me, or does it feel a little warm in here to you?

Suggestion Box

I spent a lot of years believing altruism does not exist, that no one does anything unselfishly.  But I had not yet lived long enough to realize how wrong I was.

Now, I believe -- to paraphrase Dr. Wayne Dyer -- that the true human equation is peace over ego.  The happiest people in the world are those who habitually serve others.  I think it is because throughout life they accumulate fewer regrets.  It is amazing how much better you feel -- instantly -- by simply becoming aware of your own anger and realizing that it is nothing more than ego fuel.

Okay, maybe that's a little heavy for a suggestion box introduction in a humor blog.  However, it does explain my goal for this project.  Am I doing some great service to the world?  Probably not.  But if one of these ridiculous stories for a few minutes eases your worry about gas prices or work's latest impossible deadline,...then, maybe there are worse things I could do.

But, I can't hear you laugh.  So, I would really enjoy hearing any feedback you would like to offer.  Let me know what you found funny about a particular story. If there is something that you are not seeing that you would like more of, I'll make efforts to make it happen.  Or, if a story was too long or simply sucked in a general sort of way, let me know that too.  I don't bruise easily.  Well thought out criticisms of my writings have always been eureka moments for me, because I suddenly see things from a new angle. 

If you don't feel comfortable leaving comments below, you can email me directly at samrvs2@gmail.com.

In the meantime, I think I will go tell my shower curtain that I am filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against it.  You know, just to see what sort of reaction I get.  Heh-heh.