Thursday This n That

Earlier, I saw some silly ditz 'digital content creator' saying that you don't have to be a writer to be an author.  Wuh?

Yesterday, I read a headline that went something like 'law students think tests are discriminatory' because they're too hard.  Like the person who posted the link said 'tests are supposed to help discriminate between the capable and the incapable', so yeah.

What is with all these words that people are putting asterisks into now?  I write a bunch of crime fiction, but words like rape, murder, killer, etc. are forbidden?  I don't even like putting asterisks in when I type fuck, I'm sure as hell not going to do it when I talk about rape or murder or killers.  Pardon me, but fuck that shit.

I wrote a note to FB in answer to their limiting my number of marketing posts.  Now, I don't seem to be getting the block, but I'm also not getting any reach.  Brilliant.  Wish in One Hand has traditionally flown out the door when I run a freebie.  I got 21 downloads the first day, then I wrote FB that note and the next day I got 4.  :eyeroll: :facepalm: :headdesk: 

Just got our Brightspeed 'final bill' thing.  They owe us $24.  It would've been nice if they'd just put in a check.  But no.  I'll most likely have to call them and struggle to get my credit back.  Fun.

I've been watching The IT Crowd.  It's pretty funny.  If you're a nerd, which I am.

I'm up to 50 miles walked for the year.  I posted that to FB and one of my friends (someone I've 'known' since like 2006 when I got my first blog) said something like 'well, you better turn around and go home'.  This is why we're friends.  LOL

If I wore jeans, I'd be buying myself a pair of American Eagle right now.  Sometimes I miss wearing jeans.  :shrug:

Dollar General has the best ice cream.  It's Caramel Swirl.  Caramel flavored ice cream with a ribbon of smooth caramel.  No chunks.  It's awesome.  I'm not a fan of chunks in my ice cream.

Got anything to add today?

At The Movies with B.E.

Time again for another trip to the movies.  This past week, I watched:

All of Me (1984) - Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin.  If you haven't seen this, you're missing out on a hilariously fun movie.  Lily plays a rich lady who's dying and has plans to put her soul into a beautiful young woman, but the vessel falls out a window and hits her lawyer - played by Steve - in the head.  So, now she's in his body with him and he has to get her out.  Comedic genius on the part of Steve Martin with some cute verbal bits by Tomlin.

Swallows and Amazons (2016) - this was a sleeper I found when I was just looking for something nice to watch.  It's about these kids in England on holiday in 1935.  They go to a home on a lake and get permission to take the boat out to this island, where they stay the night, but there are other kids who have already claimed the island and they have a 'war'.  It all works out and they become friends, and they defeat some Russian spies, too.  We really enjoyed this one.

Death on the Nile (1978) - Peter Ustinov as Poirot.  Need I say more?  Personally, I prefer David Suchet as Poirot, but I love Peter Ustinov, so I couldn't really go wrong watching this. It's a pretty good adaptation, if you can get past the '70s kitsch. 

The Mirror Crack'd (1980) - this had a star-studded cast, including Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson.  Angela Lansbury made a fine Miss Marple.  (Margaret Rutherford was the best Miss Marple, but that was a longer time ago.)  I've never seen another adaptation for this book, so I guess this would be the best one.  Not the best Agatha Christie based movie I've ever seen though.  Fun, but I'm not a huge fan of Elizabeth Taylor.

Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt (2012) - Another awesome Jesse Stone.  Although this one did kind of leave things hanging that weren't addressed in the next and final movie of the series.

Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise (2015) - This was the final Jesse Stone movie.  It was a pretty good one, even if it did start out a little sad.  I was sorry to have finished this series of movies and I definitely know we'll be revisiting these at least once a year from now on.

Murphy's Romance (1985) - a cute little romance between a divorcee (Sally Field) and a older pharmacist (James Garner).  She moves out to a small town in AZ, I think, to start her own ranch and escape from her life in CA.  She meets the pharmacist and over time they become friends.  Then her ex shows up like he's trying to win her back, and it's clear to everyone but her that Murphy 's tossed his hat into the ring for her.  Anyway, it all works out in the end.  HEA abounds.  Yay.

That's it for me... I know, it was a lot.  It'll taper off this week, as I'm running out of movies and watching more shows.  Eh, maybe I'll start talking about those, too.  We'll see.  Did you watch anything good lately?

Marketing Monday - Wish in One Hand

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Sunday Update - 2025 Week 31

This is my 3200th post on this blog, by the way.  Not important, just sayin'.

It's Sunday again and I don't have much to tell you.  I was supposed to start the AuGoWriMo thing on Friday.  I failed.  I did write this morning, though, so that's a step in the right direction.  (Or the write direction... lol.)  Duke Noble 3 is at 16242 words as of a minute ago.  Woot.  I have greats hopes to get the first draft finished by the end of the month.

I did some marketing this week.  Unequal was free and I moved 41 copies. :sad trombone:  Eh, I wasn't expecting it to go gangbusters, but still.  This coming week, Wish in One Hand will be free.  Maybe that'll generate some sales.  

Not much reading this week.  I forgot to post yesterday, so anything I read this week will be on next week's post.

No baking.  It was too hot.

On the activity front, I was a busy lady.  Three days cleaning, one day I did some dancing, I took one walk, and I went grocery shopping.  I meant to walk yesterday, but I needed to run a couple errands and then I got lazy.  Weight: 171.6

In gardening, my tomato plants have loads of flowers and still only 2 tomatoes.  Bummer.  And one of my dogwood trees died.  I think it was heatstroke.  The redbud trees are growing right along.  The hickories are doing well, too.  The one unknown tree I planted is doing really well.  The green peppers are pathetic, but that was a fool's gamble anyway.  I planted too late.  I just pushed seeds into dirt to see what would happen.  Maybe I'll try again next year and start earlier.  This is all a learning curve.  Maybe year three will net me a good harvest of edible produce.  

Other than that, not much to talk about.  I watched way too much TV, but I'm having a lot of fun with the Roku thing.  Amusing myself to death, I believe is the phrase.  I told you Roku would be dangerous for me.  I need to find a way to balance the entertainment with the serious business of actually living.  To that end, I need to write.  And to exercise.  In between all the fun shows.  Umm... yeah.

Anyway, have a great day wherever you are.  And drop a note about what you're up to before ya leave, eh?

Friday This n That

I'm not dead.  I'm just lazy.

I woke up late two days in a row.  This makes me not want to do anything, but I had planned on going grocery shopping.  The jury's out as to whether I'll just skip over to the Dollar General for milk and postpone Wallyworld.

The news lately is fucking horrible.  Mass stabbing in Traverse City, mass shooting in NYC, some shithead killed two people in front of their kids on a fucking hiking trail in NWAR (northwest Arkansas to the uninitiated), four people were murdered by some asshole in TN.  Is it any wonder I don't want to go anywhere?

I dreamed last night that I had a third tomato on my plants.  Yeah, I lead a boring life.  Here's me dreaming about tomatoes.  One more tomato is an exciting thing for me.

I'm supposed to start AuGoWriMo today and write words.  I need to carve out some time to do that and I need to STOP watching Roku for a few hours to get that done.  I can do it!  Unfortunately, we found a new series to watch last night and it was awesome.  Drat.

A couple of days ago, I had a chicken breast defrosted to make Salsa Chicken, but then I realized I didn't have the right cheese, so I turned it into a kind of Chicken Parm.  Slap a chicken breast into a pan, cover it in marinara sauce, cover that all in mozzarella, bake at 375F for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.  I made spaghetti noodles and more sauce to go with it, and added those into the pan about halfway through.  It all turned out really yummy.  We ate the leftovers for dinner last night.  Yum.

Yeah, the lacking cheese thing is another reason I need to go to Wallyworld.  Drat.

During the making of the spaghetti noodles, I spent some time dancing around the living room to music in my head.  Sawyer was freaked out by this.  Finn just looked at me like I'd lost my mind.  Maybe I had.

At the Movies with B.E.

Okay, twice in a row.  This is a trend.  Anyway, here are the movies I watched in the past week:

The Name of the Rose (1986) - I hadn't seen this one in a really long time, but I remembered liking it, so when I found it, I slapped it on my Save list.  I still liked it.  Hubs totally didn't.  To each his own, and perspectives, etc.  It's rare that we differ on things, but when we do, the thing is entertainment.  :shrug:

Jane Eyre (although strictly speaking this was a mini-series in 1983) - this is the version with Timothy Dalton as Rochester :swoon:.  I saw this one back when I was living in Illinois, so it had to be 1992.  There's a lot cut from this to make it short enough for TV, but all in all, a pretty faithful adaptation of the book.  And did I mention Timothy Dalton :swoon:?  Hubs enjoyed it, but he had a completely different and interesting perspective on the whole thing, which actually made the discussion of it enjoyable.  He really didn't appreciate Rochester's treatment of Jane.  I never thought about it that way before.

Jesse Stone: No Remorse (2010) - this was #6 in the series.  It was pretty damn good, too, like the others.  Something about Tom Selleck in this role makes me happy.  I really need to pick up the books.

Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (2011) - another good installment of Jesse.  

Invitation to a Murder (2023)  - searching through all the things to watch, I stumbled across this.  The blurb for it sounded interesting, and it delivered.  It seemed like it was going to be a knockoff of And Then There Were None, but ended up as a nice, all around nod to Agatha Christie.  Not a thrilling movie, but a good one.  

Have you watched anything good lately?  Got any good suggestions for things I might want to watch?  

Marketing Monday - Blink of an I

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