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10. Way to Save #65: Don't Let Your Doctor Cost You - Lower Your Out-of-Pocket Medical Costs by Asking


11. Chez Pim's Mix-on-the-Counter Flaky Pastry Dough Recipe


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14. Training the Mind to Run Right Through the Winter


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16. Google's Free Airport Wi-Fi: Five Ways to Protect Yourself


17. The Food Lab: Turkey Brining Basics


18. Cooking for One: The single shopper


19. SaveEveryWay - daily money saving reminders


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34. Chinese talk about racism ahead of Obama trip


35. Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code

norda

Reprinting the post linked in the previous post, because I'm told my use of indiscriminant italics is difficult to read with the font I use on my LJ. Some of the information in the post is slightly out-of-date, but it doesn't require retconning.

==========================================

Written in response to someone else's post, but certainly worth repeating, especially to those Gentle Readers who are new and new-ish to my blog.

This is a two-pronged question... what do we do to attract people to read, and what attracts us to the people that we read?

Response to Part One:

I've got three journals, remember, so the answers are going to be different for each. But for now I'll concentrate on the norda journal, unless you're really burning with curiosity about the reasoning behind the design for booksbynight and mikescomics.

I've worked on my design for the norda journal, with the help of caligatia, to customize the features I like into a layout design that normally doesn't have them. I like not having to go back to the Profile page to update or to edit, and I like having my tags running down the side so I can remember the ones I use most often.

I also am happy for a design that showcases my sister ziyda's fabulous photography, both in header and background.

Now that I'm starting to get a wider audience reading my personal journal, as spillover from the other two journals, I do start to wonder whether I should be writing FOR that audience. But my audience here, versus the audiences for booksbynight and mikescomics, is so varied... I have people who are of all ages, races, and creeds. Sooner or later, if I write "for" any one segment in my personal journal, I'm going to offend another segment. Therefore I'm just going to keep writing about my days, my business, my hopes, my dreams, my occasional forays into surreality, and hope that's enough to keep people around.

Response to Part Two:

My reading list [I don't call it a Friends-list, because I can't possibly delude myself that, for example, docbrite is my bestest ever pal] is made up of:

1] folks I know offline;

2] folks I know from other Internet communities, like the Prodigy Classic bulletin boards, the Delphi Forums, and offshoot forums on Beehive, like Sanity Assassinations, The VHive, and The Engine;

3] folks I've met or heard about from the science fiction and comics convention circuits;

4] writers, publishers, and artists whose work I want to keep up with;

5] folks I've run into right here on LiveJournal, either in comments or through "friending frenzies". There's often a lot of overlap among the groups.

What attracts me to the people I read depends on what category I end up putting their journals. I don't filter what I write other than Friends and Public, and now that I've discovered Technorati, I realize that Friends-locking isn't terribly safe from determined hackers. Therefore the only writing filter I apply is whether something actually GETS written, or whether it stays locked up in my pretty head.

I *do*, however, apply reading filters, a little trick I picked up from mabfan.

LJ provides automatic ones like "communities only" and "feeds only". I also have alphabetical ones, which seems to stop the problem of others' entries being missed. In addition, I have a filter for writers and publishers, and one for artists, because their entries are ones I don't want to just skim, so I gather them in one place to savor when I have the time to do so. To round it out, I do have one filter for the naughtier and more salacious of my Gentle Readers, to have them all in one place and keep them out of sight of unsuspecting people.

I'm adding fewer and fewer people these days, and have dropped some communities and nearly all my feeds, because my time is so limited. Nowadays, I'll add someone out of courtesy if they've added me first and their LJ interests me, but I don't really seek anyone new out to read unless there's some way I can network with them.

That last sentence makes me sound cold and aloof, which I really don't want to be, and I don't want you people second-guessing yourselves that I only keep you around for what I can get out of you.

Yes, right now my business takes precedence over everything else, because quite frankly my life without a paycheck is on the precarious side.

That does not mean that I'm not reading each and every one of your entries. I am not missing your rants because of being beguiled by others' quizzes.

I may not respond, for reasons ranging from my reticence to discuss politics, religion, and issues online, to sheer lack of time to treat your topics with the respect they deserve.

But I do read you all.

norda

A repost from 2007, seemingly necessary once again.

=============================

Drama comes here to die.

If any of youse are expecting fodder here to fuel dramas going on elsewhere, youse'll be sorely disappointed.

I'm coated in Teflon, I'm drama-blind, and I have worlds crashing and burning all around me, practically every minute of every everlasting day, that are NOT based on pixels on a screen, but are instead housed in cages of bone with dwindling flesh wrapped around them.

Two of those crashing and burning worlds live with me.

One of those crashing and burning worlds is me.

I don't expect every person on my reading list to love every other person on my reading list.

I *do* expect that you're reading me because you like what I have to say, not because of whom I know or don't know.

As a smart fellah once said, "The audience is open to all who wish to sit down".

'Nuff said.

Capice?

I'll leave you to digest this.

[Edited to add: Silence is not always complicity.]

shinryou

I still haven't slept yet.

I even ate turkey to see if it would put me to sleep.

It didn't.

I would cry, but I am too tired for tears.

Whispful sigh!!!

vulpine137

As requested...







Yes, there's no tie. There is a story about that, I'll tell ya later ;) So what do you think ?

ellenmillion

• 20:43 Oh my. Very long day - much snow removal and building accomplished. The stairwell is half done! #
• 20:52 Now that I've stopped moving, my arms are starting to hurt... #

snopes_dot_com

http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/soldiercards.asp

snopes_dot_com

http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/hondahybrid.asp

clauderainsrm
therealljidol

clauderainsrm

Each decision we make takes us to the next page. Closer and closer to the end of the book.

Will you open the door and see what is inside or go back out and wait for the others?

Will you ask the stranger for directions or find your own way on foot?

It's Choose Your Own Adventure Time, and I think it's fair to say that this week there was plenty of "adventure".

Five different topics. Which, as per usual, is how the tribes have been reshuffled.

Some tribes are going to be huge. Others tiny. There is an advantage and disadvantage in each.

But for this week, that is how they look. There is an extra tribe for the "byes" this time around. Just to show how one slip, and one decision, could very well change the change the fate of the season entirely.

One open door. One question asked.

One vote cast.

Maybe that vote is going to be yours.

The bottom vote getter in each tribe (except "the bye week tribe" of course) will be eliminated.

Voting closes Tuesday November 17th at 8 pm EST
Good luck to everyone!

vulpine137

Wedding is survived. I have tux pics so you lot can see how well I clean up. I'll post them tomorrow at some point. Right now I'm nine kinds of exhausted and not feeling my best. Think I'm going to go curl up with a book and rest. Congrats again to Kestrel and strongbow. *falls over*

shinryou

I will NOT blow up the world today!

I will NOT blow up the world today!

Just because people are stupid, annoying and rude!!!
Is no excuse to blow up the world today...

Just because people use you, ignore you and piss on you,
is no excuse to blow up the world today...

Just because no one has manners or the brains of a dead nat,
is no excuse to blow up the world today...

Just because November SUCKS big time
is no excuse to blow up the world today...

Just because you haven't slept in five days...
well... that might be a good reason...
but we will still refrane from blowing up the world today...

I think I really hate this November,
and I am really am just too tired to blow up the world today...

*This rant has been kindly brought to you by the crazy sleep deprived part of my warped brain.
Thank you for your time, you may return to your normal life now.*

norda

Subtitled: "It's a mess of moonlight, won't-cha share it with me?"

Mary Cecilia sat in her son-in-law's leather recliner in her daughter's and son-in-law's living room, a room which was seldom actully lived in. Usually the den was the nightly gathering place for her grandchildren, and she had a recliner of her own there which was always called "Nannie's chair".

But tonight was different, because her son-in-law and her daughter were out for the night, and she was babysitter and playmate to the youngest two, with the next oldest acting as her "babysitting assistant". The older children were upstairs, since they could generally be safely left to their own devices.

On nights like this, Mary Cecilia liked to be in the living room, rather than the den, for two reasons. The first reason was because it was easier for her to answer the doorbell or the telephone from the living room than from the den... even the three little steps up and down sometimes bothered her at night. The second reason was the more important of the two; the hi-fi was in the living room.

The 13-year-old babysitting assistant loved this time together too.. her Nannie always brought music with her, both literally and figuratively. On this night, the youngster carefully took the thick record album that Nannie told her to pick out and gently removed the first record from its paper sleeve. She placed it on the turntable and changed the setting as instructed, and then moved the record arm with its needle over to the first groove.

The littlest children, one a five-year-old boy, the other a three-year-old girl, looked up from their tower-building when the first notes of "In The Mood" came spilling from the stereo speakers. The little boy started to grin widely; he got to his feet and began to dance to the music. His little sister clapped as the boy's feet moved faster and faster.

Mary Cecelia put her arm around her assistant, who was now perched on the arm of the recliner. They both knew that this moment was one that would never come again, and they both wished, in their own minds and for their own reasons, that they could literally just abandon themselves to joy the way that a five-year-old could. Cares like arthritis and homework, medical bills and schoolyard cruelty, all faded away under the spell of Glenn Miller and his orchestra.

* * * * * * * * * *

The thirteen-year-old was never able to capture that moment again.

She did, however, have similar moments come to pass over the course of time, and continues to find them here and there.



Especially when she hears those signature notes in fat brass.

============================

This is an entry for the Season 6 edition of therealljidol. Other entries and related topics can be found by clicking on the tag "lj idol". Thanks for reading!

lilmissmagic71

There is such a thing as peace. It’s elusive… comes in small doses. It dances around your peripheral mind. The tasks of the day pile up and you are immersed in the drudgery of getting on with the act of living. And yet peace is there… its found in diverse ways for each individual but the natural world provides myriad opportunities for finding that peace.

Peace isn’t something that comes easy to me… I struggle against the tide of HAVE TO, NEED TO, WANT TO… obligations, responsibilities… I can’t ever seem to escape them. Finding a moment to paint… to write… to be easy… it isn’t’ something I can schedule.

So of course, in the way of the Universe… it finds me. Stolen moments of tranquility, courtesy of the one Force more formidable than me on a mission…. I am gently caressed in fragments of beauty, practically imperceptible, except that the thirst of my spirit gives me a heightened sense of them. A determined natural energy gives me pause, against my will… forcing my senses to stop for a fraction of time… freezes a moment and makes me take heed to the exquisite beauty of simplicity…

…I sit at a red light wondering if I’m going to be late for my son’s class party. The light seems to be taunting me; I can’t remember it ever taking this long to change before. I cast useless glances around the intersection, willing the light to change… and a wind stirs the air. A red maple leaf blows into my open window and lands on my steering wheel. Its veins are ruddy roads, minute pathways surrounded by crimson fields. It’s perfect in its death… promising a verdant return in Spring. I find myself traveling through them, wondering where they lead… A horn honks and breaks my reverie. The light has changed and I race on into my day.

…I am walking, not for my health. I carry a car seat, purse and backpack with one hand and drag a reluctant and whining pre-schooler along with the other. I scan the busy morning traffic for signs of my grandmother… awaiting rescue from my second flat tire of the week. Moms busily drive by, rushing to get their kids to school as I wonder if John will be late. I didn’t plan on any walking this morning and my impractical shoes are making each step an agony. As I walk up the sidewalk with my burdens, I wonder from where the money to repair this tire will come… what will I have to let go unpaid just to be able to drive my kids to school. The angst mounts as my grandmother STILL isn’t in sight and I have 7 minutes left to get John to school on time. As we round the corner to wait at the stop sign as agreed, the air takes on a familiar fragrance and I find myself awash in the scent of wild wisteria. As I seek the source, I can barely see a ragged hillside, covered in fallen trees and neglected cars. Appliances litter the ground and the few trees left standing seem almost angry in their postures. Then I see it. Obscuring the ugliness with a determined vigilance, vines of healthy green, drip with vibrant purple blooms… daring the passerby to see anything but beauty in its resolute attempt to reclaim the hill. I take deep breaths, drawing in the sweetness offered and feel the worry melt from my shoulders. I relax my grip on angry thoughts and let the wisteria wash over me. I am utterly calm in a sea of rushing cars and insistent, impatient commuters. I can’t even see them anymore.

…I am trying desperately to clean my house. The floors are covered in the clothes my family seems to shed like snakeskin, left lying where they fell. I can’t get the vacuum to work, damn belt is probably off again. I find that I am out of powder for the dishwasher, haven’t made it to the store for beverages. I burn the first batch of biscuits and my boys are waging war over whose turn it is to melt their brain on the Playstation. The only pair of jeans I own that fit are in the hamper and I find myself staring in the mirror wondering if I should just give up and eat a cheesecake a day so I will have to be buried in a piano case. I go outside to my car, hoping to scrounge enough change to send my husband for a pack of cigarettes, even as I berate myself over putting even more nails in my coffin. As I am mounting the steps clutching the enabling coins in my hand, a whippoorwill begins its evening song… filling the woods around my house with a mournful beauty. His song seems to enter my heart… joining with my sadness, telling me I am not alone. I take heart as his cry rises. It drowns out the thoughts visited upon me by my own frustrations. As he falls silent, I enter my home, smile at my husband and get on with my chores without the grousing. After all, the whippoorwill understands.

vulpine137

Time for the Wedding. Well, in about 4 hours, but I have to cut out in a few, meet up with part of the wedding party and car pool up. Should be an interesting day.