Friday Funny

HELL EXPLAINED

(By a chemistry student)

The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid term, and an actual answer turned in by a student.

The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs
heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. There fore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a
divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh, my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.



LOL I really doubt the validity of this as a true event; however, it is darned funny.

New Review for BELONG TO THE NIGHT

From Romance Reviews Today: "A sexy witch and a detective who wants to be in charge make for great reading in City of the Dead. Sherrill Quinn turns up the heat in ways that will have your eyes popping out of your head. Anything goes between Dori and Jake. Their love scenes simmer in ways where you will need a fan to cool off... Three hot and heavy sexed up stories make for great reading in Belong to the Night. Whether you are in the mood for a small town overrun by sexy powerful witches, former lovers who heat up the night with their supernatural powers, or a steamy New Orleans setting where magic and mischief bring out the laughs, this anthology is one to keep on your reading radar."


You can read the full review here.

Tipsy Tuesday

How much you read has a big impact on how much you know (and, by extension, how smart you are.) According to the study "What Reading Does for the Mind" by Anne E. Cunningham (which we began looking at last week), people who read are more likely to know about how carburetors work, what vitamin is found in concentrated forms in citrus fruits, and other general facts. Regardless of general abilities, people who read more know more.

Equally important, they are less likely to be sucked in by misinformation. In an interesting test, a group of 268 college students was asked how many of the world's people are Muslim vs. Jewish. Almost 70% of these smart college kids thought Jewish people outnumbered Muslims. Actually, there are about 20 million Jewish people and more than 800 million Muslims.

Cunningham found that the more TV participants watched, the more likely they were to get that question wrong. But the more they read, the more likely they were to get the answer right. General intellectual ability didn't matter--the amount of reading versus television consumption did.

I guess there is truth in advertising when Hulu had Alec Baldwin telling us they were turning our brains to mushy mush! LOL

Man Meat Monday

Dark hair, dark eyes, cleft chin... grrrrrrowf!

Friday Funny

Got this in an email from my cousin P:

Last night my sister and I were sitting in the den and I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle to keep me alive. That would be no quality of life at all... If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

So she got up, unplugged the computer, and threw out my wine.

She's such a bitch.



LOLLOL

Book Nook

Barnes & Noble has rolled out their challenge to Amazon in the form of the Nook. With an additional memory card, the Nook can hold 17,500 books. Can you imagine what a home library would look like with 17,500 paper books?!? (My dream library, for one, with floor to ceiling built-in bookshelves crammed full of lovely, lovely books. *sigh* LOL) According to B&N, if you turn off the wireless 3G connection, you won't have to recharge the Nook for 9 days. You could vacation without lugging around the charger.

One of the most interesting features to me is the lending capacity. With a paper book, you can loan it to a friend, let them read it, badger them until they remember to return it to you, then you can read and enjoy it again. Well, you can do the same thing with the Nook--loan one of your books to a friend. At this point you can only lend each book one time, but that's better than nothing, right? It makes me wonder if it might cut down on pirating to a certain extent.

The Nook will be available at the end of November (just in time for Christmas! Yay!) You can check it out here.

Tipsy Tuesday

You probably know that reading makes you smarter, and the more reading you do, the better. In a paper called "What Reading Does for the Mind," Anne E. Cunningham, associate professor of cognition and development at the University of California, Berkeley, makes the case that reading:

• increases vocabulary more than talking or direct teaching;
• substantially boosts general knowledge while decreasing the likelihood that misinformation will be absorbed; and
• helps keep our memory and reasoning abilities intact as we age.

Here's what I find most interesting: Cunningham's paper refers to studies that ranked the frequency of 86,741 English words. (A word's frequency is how often it appears in speech or writing. In speech, the average word frequency is 400--meaning, when we talk, we're likely to use a relatively small set of frequently occurring words.)

However, words in children's book--which people think of as being simple little things, right?--have an average frequency of 627. Which means that the language in a children's book is likely to be more sophisticated than your average conversation.

Interested yet?

Between fourth and sixth grades, kids are likely to have encountered all but rare words--those ranked below 10,000 on the list. (And I wonder what words those are...) The only way for kids to learn those rare words is to encounter them, and they're far more likely to do that on the printed page.

Check these stats: In a newspaper, 68.3 words per 1,000 are considered "rare." In children's literature, 30.9 per 1,000 are rare. On prime-time TV, it sinks to 22.7. (Hulu is right--TV is turning our brains into mushy-mush! LOL) In conversations between college graduates, it's even lower--17.3 words per 1,000. So even if a child is talking with well-educated parents, his/her best shot at expanding his/her vocabulary is by reading.

Next Tuesday we'll pick up with the second bulleted point: how reading boosts general knowledge.



Now, on to really important matters, the winner of my extra Heat Wave book...

Wait for it...


...


The winner is...

Colleen!

Colleen, please email me with your snail mail addy and I'll get the book and some other goodies out to you as soon as possible.

Man Meat Monday

Ain't he purty?

Friday Funny

There's a new DexKnows commercial that just cracks me up. I couldn't embed the video here, so click this link to get to it on YouTube.

New Review for SEDUCING THE MOON

4 1/2 Hearts from Love Romances and More:

"Seducing the Moon is a delightful story that will have you running to Ms. Quinn’s website for more details on the next books in the series. The characters are well rounded, the story keeps you entertained and man the sex scenes between Declan and Pelicia are scorching hot. I almost was afraid it would set the couch on fire. With the right touch of mysticism, mystery and simmering sexual tension, the reader is introduced into a world of unique wolf shifters that will capture your heart. I am highly looking forward to more from Ms. Quinn and hope you race to grab Seducing the Moon as soon as you can. It will surely keep you reading till the wee hours of the morning and longing for more. This is one I will reread again once I get the first book, Daring the Moon."

You can read the full review here. For an excerpt or to buy, go here.

New Free Story On Its Way

By next Wednesday I should be ready to post the first installment of a new blog story. This one is set in Victorian London and deals with my fascination with one of the most notorious serial killers of all time--Jack the Ripper.

Stay tuned!

Tipsy Tuesday

Description in your novel helps bring the story to life for your readers. The more detail you can give on the world you've created, the easier it is for readers to immerse themselves in that world.

One way to do that is through color. There are so many different shades--giving your readers the best description goes a long way in painting a mental picture for them. Are your hero's eyes blue? What shade? Cobalt blue is different from ice blue, yet each conjures an image of a specific color.

So paint your canvas with words, and watch your story come to life.

Man Meat Monday

Is that the face of a hero, or what?

In A Giveaway Mood

I had a lot of fun over on Cynthia Eden's blog yesterday--thanks again to everyone who stopped by! I had so much fun, in fact, that I'm still in the mood to give stuff away. Not just any stuff, though--a copy of Richard Castle's book Heat Wave. (Somehow I had an itchy trigger finger and ended up ordering two. My loss, one lucky reader's gain. And I had to laugh when I saw the "author" photo on the back--Nathan Fillion--and cover blurbs by real life authors Michael Connelly and Stephen J. Cannell, who both have guest starred as themselves on the show.)

If you haven't read the first 9 chapters and would like to, ABC has them posted here.



Anyone who comments on my blog this week and next (and they have to be appropriate post-related comments, folks--play fair) will be eligible to win. So stop in and have a brief chat with me on any of the topics I post each day. I'll announce the winner next Friday.

Movie Monsters

Join me over at Cynthia Eden's blog today for a discussion about movies and monsters, as well as a chance to win a copy of our shared anthology, Belong to the Night.

More Man Meat

Very, very tired this morning. Wish I could just crawl back into bed.

Of course, if this was waiting for me, I'm sure there wouldn't be much sleep happening...

Tipsy Tuesday

As tempting as it is to "write to trend" or even imitate an author you like, writers need to stay true to their own voice and style. If you try to write an erotic romance but you're not comfortable writing graphic sex scenes, it's going to show. If you try to write vampires but really don't "get" paranormals, it will be apparent you haven't really, er, sunk your teeth into it.

So write about things that interest you, not what the market seems to be interested in. Learn from your favorite authors--how they do what they do and why it works--but don't imitate anyone. Be true to yourself and develop your own style.

Man Meat Monday

I'm going to spend the next few Mondays on faces that have caught my attention. I hope you, ah, enjoy them, too.



Look at those gorgeous blue eyes! *sigh*

Friday Funny

Two men are walking their dogs (a doberman and a chihuahua) when they say to each other "I'm thirsty." They see a nearby bar and walk up to it.

Unfortunately, there was a sign on the door that said NO DOGS. They thought for awhile to try to figure out what they should do with no luck. Suddenly, the man with the doberman said, "I have an idea! Do what I do."

The man put on his sunglasses, walked up to the door and tried to get in, but a big muscular man stopped him. "Where do you think you're going?" asked the big man.

"This is my seeing-eye dog."

"Alrighty mister, go right in," said the big man. The doberman man walked in.

The second man slipped his sunglasses on and did the same as the first man.

"Where are you going?" asked the big man.

"I'm going into the bar, this is my seeing-eye dog," he said.

"A chihuahua?" asked the big man with suspicion.

The other man, playing his part, yelled, "They gave me a chihuahua!?"

LOL