Blogging is good for your mind

Roger Ebert updated his blog by saying since he has been unable to speak, his writing ability has increased. Heck Yes. But I think it has a little bit to do with the actual blogging as well as being unable to speak.

Updating regularly changes the way you think, a little bit. You frame things into an entry. He wrote, "...my mind has started dictating before I am at a keyboard. Ideas and words present themselves at any time." This happened to me the other day at work. I was thinking of an entry, thinking of my phrases when there was no way I would get to a computer until hours from them.

It disciplines your mind. Sharpens your written communication skills. And, as Ebert has realized, propels you into conversation. A conversation you do not need to verbalize.

Heroes: Now just like LOST!

This graphic is from here. I have pinpointed what is wrong with Heroes this season. Heroes used to have all the answers. You couldn't miss an episode without feeling lost and confused.

Now, even with seeing all the episodes, I am lost and confused.

In short, it is just like watching Lost. I don't know what's going on. I'm not sure who is alive and who is dead. Things are said, people go places, but I'm not sure what it all means. For a while, people were not who they were on the outside...people were switching bodies and going back in time so much I wasn't sure who was who.

Now Heroes is as infuriating as LOST. Who would have thought that the show that gave answers would only give questions?

Lost doesn't come back for another two months

Found here.

Yeah, I believe the date for Lost is January 2009, but the television gods decided to tease us anyway. Thanks, also, for making Lost and Battlestar Galactica come back around the same time. It's not like I space out my t.v. watching or anything.

No one really thinks about George W. Bush anymore

When's the last time anyone talked about George W. Bush except how they aren't him? Serious. Even journalists have abandoned him as an official source because they have Barack Obama and John McCain to talk to instead. Someone has lame duck syndrome.

You can only be a Washington, DC outsider for so long

Lots of talk about the inside D.C. politics makes me feel like I'm the enemy, and I've just been living here minding my own business. Lately, all this "pro-America" talk makes me wonder if I'm living in the "anti-America" part of the country. You know, because I live near lobbyists, politicians, and the homeless. I walk to work and take mass transit rather than on my four-wheeler. I have never killed something and then eaten it.

But all this talk had made me wonder, and apparently someone else too: what would Sarah Palin do here? Would she hang out in southern Virginia, because NoVa is "not real Virginia"? The other blog says she would eat out at Fuddruckers (which I can totally see...it's "real" American food) but doesn't give many other suggestions.

Would she continue to shop on the RNC dollar? Would her kids be allowed out of the White House into the big, scary world? Where will Bristol Palin have her baby?

It's a little hard to imagine the Palin family anywhere normal DCers go. Could you just imagine the entire clan at Ben's Chili Bowl?

No one watches Mad Men

Apparently, no one is watching one of the best shows on television. I'm at fault, too; I don't have AMC so I can't view it when it comes on Sunday nights. I watch it a few days later by streaming the video.

Thus I ask, or beg, AMC, please. Put this show online. I will watch the advertisements, support the show, if only you will let me. I rented it when it was available at the video store. I talk about it with people at work, on the phone, and now, on my blog. Do us a favor and hop on the online streaming bandwagon. Everyone's doing it.

Extreme Makeover: Sarah Palin edition

I do wish someone would give me $150,000 in clothes. Maybe I should campaign to be on the Republican ticket in four years. Well, two...the elections are like Christmas. They always begin before you think they should. Maybe they would pay my student loans.

Apparently some donors to the RNC are upset and want their money back. The RNC called no backsies.

Sarah Palin flies over image of herself

Someone has taken it upon themselves to fashion Sarah Palin's image in a corn field. CNN reports Sarah Palin flew over this lovely piece of artistry and immediately proclaimed it was a "pro-America" part of the country.

Meg Cabot works harder than you do

Meg Cabot is one hard worker. For one thing, she has published three books this year that I know about. There might be another one or two that I'm not thinking of. She went on a massive book tour. She does more in a year than I did the last four.

A question was asked to another young adult writer (Laurie Halse Anderson): what if your publisher expects more of the same, but instead you have a super historical fiction coming out of your fingers? It's called genre bending and the answer was pretty much, well, your publisher freaks out. Somehow, Meg Cabot gets around this, writing historical fiction, science fiction, romance, fiction for adults, fiction for young adults, and fiction for intermediate readers.

This woman is a writing super hero. Sometimes its painful for me to imagine writing an email, and this woman is writing a book every four months!

I love Google Adsense

Google Ads were the first that I willingly clicked on, mostly because they led to articles or pages that I found legitimately interesting. I also think they are aesthetically pleasing.

They remain my favourite advertisements, right above those where you click to hit a home run. It is also very easy to set up an account, and easy to get approved; after all, I got approved.

While I haven't yet made any money, it is amazing to think that there are people who earn lots of money from blogging, enough to call it an income. Think about that the next time you visit a site with advertisements: that may be the way they are supporting themselves.

The funniest, I think, is when budgeting blogs, which typically begin because a person is so in debt they need a way to organize it all, begin making money off of their advertisements. Originally used as a tool (kind of like a calorie counter), it earns the person money to pay off their debts!

More bad news on the Perfect Fifths front

Okay, so I know I'm harping, but this is only because I loved this series in high school.

Megan McCafferty has changed the loved format of her books from journal entry. Behold:

Fans were shocked when McCafferty read the third-person opening of "Perfect Fifths," since the other novels in the series are written as journal entries. According to McCafferty, two sections of the novel are written in third-person, one in verse and one completely in dialogue.

Shocked and saddened? Maybe I should let fate decide this one. After all, despite all the press it is getting, it isn't due out until April 2009.

Dear Marion, Illinois: You lose either way

This, I imagine, is posted on Route 13 either to or from Carbondale. Marion, Illinois, is typically conservative. I know, I grew up near it. So imagine my surprise when the Wonkette both name checks the town and knows that it is several hundred miles from Chicago (and from Bill Ayers).

The funny thing is that Marion loses either way. If he isn't elected president, he's still one of their senators. So suck on that, Marion!

In other news in Illinois politics, everyone hates Rod Blagojevich. Everyone. The man has a worse approval rating than President Bush. No one dared to give him the slightest positive rating. For serious. Judy Barr Topinka must feel really bad about herself, because she lost to the most hated current governor in the United States.

Today's Nostalgia: Baking goods without the big oven

I have written about cupcakes before, the tiny baked goods filled with nostalgia. I wrote about cupcake shops in particular, that are capitalizing on that nostalgia while not breaking your waistline.

Now apparently there is a toy cupcake machine that makes one at a time. It was reviewed at one of the budgeting blogs I read, Common Sense With Money, who is now starting to do reviews. This seems like a good item for Christmas, depending on the budget.

I wonder how similar this is to the Easy Bake Oven. And why does it have to be a toy? Now that I am sort of an adult, I don't have a use for 24 cupcakes. It would actually be better to have one at a time, but depending on how much is costs to make each one, it might be cheaper to buy individually from the shop.

Banks are not the enemy

I am almost sad to close my account at the University of Illinois Employees Credit Union. Their location on campus had made it easy to withdraw and make deposits. I never really had any strange fees from them, and the one time I became overdrawn they forgave the charge. They forgave the $5 charge for the debit card when I explained I was going to close the account and hadn't used my debit in more than a month.

When do you get that kind of understanding from a bank?

I am also happy with the HSBC savings account. With better interest rates than you can get from a brick and mortar institution, they also rebate ATM fees. That was a pleasant surprise after being hit every time I go to an enemy ATM.

Just a shout out to banks who haven't wrung me out for all the money I am worth.

Oh snaps, Saturday Night Live

"I built me a bridge and it ain't goin' nowhere."

Colin Powell Endorses Obama!

I think that Colin Powell's vote is worth like 270 electoral ones, right?

Media Matters for America is super peeved

I wrote earlier about John McCain's visit to Letterman, saying, "At least he mentioned Gordon Libby on par with William Ayers."

This is something the non-profit research center Media Matters for America has been frothing about for a while. They monitor media, listening for misinformation that forwards the conservative agenda. They are excited that someone in the mainstream media finally mentioned Gordan Libby. They are only a bit weepy that it was a late night talk show host.

They write, "For years, political professionals, academics, and media watchdogs have lamented the fact that some Americans get their news from late-night comedians and other entertainment. As it turns out, that might be a good thing."

They are basically writing against the Neil Postman argument that news should not be entertaining. And while sensationalist news about the latest missing white woman. However, also from Media Matters, people who watch The Daily Show are pretty informed when it comes to current events. The idea is that in order to understand a joke about a current event, you have to have a pretty thorough understanding of it.

So basically, yay for fun media! We don't have to sit through the evening news after all!