Happy Groundhog Day!

While much of the country is in a deep freeze, winter has finally poked its head back into southern Arizona. We're only supposed to be in the 40s the next couple of days. I know, I know. 40s is downright balmy for a lot of you, but it's cold for us. We actually have a hard freeze warning until 9 a.m. And I love it. Cold with no snow is perfect! LOL The only thing that would make it better is if we had more snow on the mountains.



One of my favorite movies!

Man Meat Monday

Rawr!

Friday Funny

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1. I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog.
2. There was no email. We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents.
3. Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass. Nowhere was safe!
4. There were no MP3s or Napsters or iTunes. If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
5. Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up. There were no CD players. We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, baby! Dig?
   
6. We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting. If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it.
7. There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
8. And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either. When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was. It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know. You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
9. We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics. We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square. You actually had to use your imagination. And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died. Just like LIFE!
10. You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on. You were screwed when it came to channel surfing. You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel. NO REMOTES.
11. There was no Cartoon Network either. You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!
12. And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove. Imagine that!
13. And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!
14. And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See? That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Rules to Live By

This past Saturday at our RWA chapter meeting I filled in for a speaker who couldn't make it to the meeting. Since it was our first meeting of the year, I decided to try to be a little inspirational, to remind people that this career we've chosen is hard work, but it's worth it. One of the things I shared was Bob Parsons' 16 rules he tries to live by. (For those of you who don't know, Bob Parsons is the founder of GoDaddy.) I thought I'd share some of them here:

• Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any significance when we're in our comfort zone. I hear people say, "But I'm concerned about security." My response to that is simple: "Security is for cadavers."
• Never give up. Almost nothing works the first time it's attempted. Just because what you're doing does not seem to be working, doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that it might not work the way you're doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn't have an opportunity.
• When you're ready to quit, you're closer than you think. There's an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: "The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed."
• Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, "As you think, so shall you be."
• Always be moving forward. Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.
• Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing. When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.
• Never expect life to be fair. Life isn't fair. You make your own breaks. You'll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).
• Don't take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

You can read all of Bob's 16 Rules here.

Man Meat Monday

Friday Funny

Amazing simple home remedies that actually work!

1. Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold the vegetables while you chop.
2. Avoid arguments with females about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.
3. For high blood pressure sufferers ~ simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure on your veins. Remember to use a timer.
4. A mouse trap placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
5. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives. Then you'll be afraid to cough.
6. You only need two tools in life - WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.
7. If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.

Daily thought:

Some people are like slinkies - not really good for anything but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

Now Available: Dragons Unleashed

The print anthology of my three dragon shifter novellas is now available!


You can get your copy at Amazon right now, and within the next day or two direct from the publisher, Amber Quill. Also available for pre-order at Barnes and Noble. (Yeah, don't ask me how Amazon managed to get it up and available before my publisher did. It usually takes Amazon a helluva lot longer.)