Monthly Archives: April 2009

Every day my mother takes a picture with her iPhone camera and emails it to me. I post the pictures here, they are never edited, but they are reduced to 70% of the original size.
See all her pictures by clicking here.
Follow My Mom on Twitter @iPhoneGran

Really I did.

In 1988 during the Armed Forces Day Parade, the Marines left a door open on an LAV. My girlfriend and I put on flack jackets and helmets and hid in it.

One of the guys was amused by our behavior, and bet another Marine that we wouldn’t stay in the tank all the way to Camp Pendelton. My friend (who shall remain unnamed) immediately started taking bets on her own, and a few hours later, we were hot, filthy and tired.

The Staff Seargant’s wife gave us dinner and a place to shower and sleep. We hitched a ride back to Palos Verdes and showed up for school without missing a beat.

Sorry Mom and Dad, that Private College Tuition was a fantastic waste of time and money.

Friday Confessions are the brainchild of Maybelline.

Every society has their secrets. My husband gathers with the guys to play poker and talk business, my daughter leaves notes in trees for the elves and faeries and my son will soon develop his own private moments.

Moms have them too.

Sometimes we’re loud and jolly, we guffaw and slap our hands on the table a little too loud. We watch out for our kids, and for yours too. Other times we gather in groups and whisper to one another about our troubles and fears. Typically it’s met with humor and we lift one another up and move forward. (more…)

Folks say to me, “don’t you worry about being sued?”

For what? Telling you that I didn’t enjoy a TV Show? Noting that Harvard professors have been called shills for drug companies by the New York Times?

Or perhaps sharing with you the time that my car keys were lost and I stood in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel while pimps, procurers and prostitutes carried on in plain sight and blunts were smoked in the open.

No, I don’t worry. Everything on this blog is either my opinion or national news. Some of my opinion has become national news.

It’s just an opinion, I’m not your Mommy and I’m not telling anyone what to do.

Call this a disclaimer. As of this moment I don’t have deals with anyone.
It’s a blog, let’s not take ourselves too seriously.

CNET is reporting that some authors believe that Amazon changed it’s ranking to exclude gay and lesbian literature from their rankings system.

I have spent the morning searching the web for an indication that Amazon is attempting to bury GLBT literature and I can’t find it. I did get an email from an unnamed source at Amazon. They say:

“Amazon tries to flag adult products like toys and products w/ explicit nudity on packaging to prevent them from popping up when they’re not desired (eg Doc Johnson is a manufacturer of adult toys and used to show up when unsuspecting moms searched for Johnson & Johnson or people shopping for plush rabbits would see The Rabbit in search results) – I’m sure you can imagine the various combinations here. This episode really was just a glitch in trying to handle this type of adult-themed product and had nothing to do w/ targeting gay/lesbian lit. Trust me, it’s just a flag that was too broadly applied by some poor dev guy by mistake.”

Based on the fact that I have known this person for over twenty years, I’m going to have to say to Amazon, “Hurry up and fix it! Then apologize and move on.”

The #AmazonFAIL hashtag has been part one of the top ten twitter searches for the past 36 hours. According to my compete toolbar, Twitter had over 14 million visitors in March of 2009, so yes, perception is everything.

I play tennis. A lot.

My husband plays a few days a week too (he’s more employed than I). Between the two of us there are about eight cans of tennis balls being used each week.

Typically I save the old tennis balls and drop them off at the dog park when I’ve filled a grocery sack, but recently I’ve noticed a change in my neighborhood.

Traffic. (more…)