Take, for instance, this new way of making and receiving free phone calls -- it's called iCall. With iCall you can call any phone in the U.S. and Canada from your PC for free, and receive phone calls from anywhere in the world for free! And, amazingly enough, you even get FREE voicemail! iCall features a new technology which uses your existing Internet connection (cable, DSL, wireless, or dial-up) and your PC to plug you directly in to the regular telephone network. How's that for slick! All you have to do is simply download iCall for free and you can be making calls within minutes! The only thing you need is a microphone or a headset!

There is a lot more information for you on their web site. You should seriously check it out!

iCall, icall.com

My sweet girl Lily has pink eye. She's my gorgeous Australian Shepherd. Her left eye was all red and icky yesterday; today they both are. Looks like I'll be calling the Vet bright and early in the morning. I feel so sorry for her. She keeps rubbing them with her paw, poor thing.

It's no wonder people get sick 'round these parts so much this time of year. It's been 85 to 89 degrees during the day, then as low as 53 at night. First you're hot, then you're cold. Then you're sick. lol Is it like that where you live?

So what did you do this weekend? My daughter and I watched Fracture last night. It was really good! Of course, anything with Anthony Hopkins in it just has to be good, right? He's such an amazing actor. Great flick. Watch it if you can.

Guess that's about it. Hope you all had a great weekend! :)

Fracture, Anthony Hopkins, Pink Eye, Pink Eye in Dogs, Australian Shepherds

My sister lived for 10 years in New Orleans, and my father was born and raised in Georgia. Yes, he was a racist. He was also a self-proclaimed Christian. How those two things mesh is beyond me. But I digress. What I learned about Louisiana from having my sister there for so long is that they are, for all intents and purposes, a culture unto themselves. They do things in ways completely unique to them. One common trait they share with much of the South, though, is racism.

You've probably guessed by now that I am talking about the unconscionable events in Jena, Louisiana. Yes, I know the U.S. Attorney announced Wednesday that the nooses hung from the tree and the beating are unrelated, to which I resoundingly say ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! Give me a break!! It's those damn nooses hung from that damn tree that started ALL of this escalating racial tension at Jena High School! And why did those white students hang those nooses? Because a few black students dared to sit under "their" tree. OH.MY.GOD. Now I ask you, where do you think those high school kids learned to be so racist? No, not just at home, people. I'm telling you, it's an inherent part of their culture!

So the nooses are hung, and nothing is done. They call it simply a high school prank. Yeah, right, just a prank. NOT! Hanging nooses is just as horrendous as burning a cross in someone's yard or spray painting a swastika on a Synagogue! It's a hate crime! (At least the police in Alexandria, Louisiana, 40 miles from Jena, recognize it for what it is! Be sure to pay attention to what the passenger of the pickup said to authorities. Like I said, deeply ingrained!) So, tensions rise and more incidents take place, finally leading to several black students beating up a white boy who, by the way, was treated and released, then went to a school function that night! All of a sudden it's attempted murder and they're arrested! WTF?? Eventually the national media got wind of the story, and you know what's happened since then. Yesterday thousands marched for justice in Jena, and I SO wish I could have been there! For all the good it did. Today the Court announced that Mychal Bell, the sole defendant who remains behind bars from the group of teens known as the "Jena 6," will not be released. This is unbelievable. This should outrage ALL of us! He was a minor when this incident occurred and he should have been charged as a juvenile! But let's just put all that aside for a moment and consider THIS: his conviction was overturned!! WHY is he still in jail??? WHY do they refuse to release him or transfer him to a juvenile facility! This is WRONG, people!

Stand up for what is RIGHT! Shout it from the rooftops -- or better yet, SHOUT it from your blogs!! We are more powerful than you know!

Jena, Louisiana, Jena 6, Mychal Bell, Racism, Racism in the South

ANYway, I think I have everything done. If you find anything amiss while here, please let me know, OK? Now, on to MUCH more interesting and important things -- how are YOU? Did you have a good weekend? Let me know what's going on in your world! :)

(making mental note to figure out how to get smilies working in MT 4)

Movable Type 4.0, Upgrading, Smilies

Hope you're all having a great Friday night! :)

Movable Type, MT, MT 4.0, Upgrading to MT 4.0

Do cats dream? I know dogs do. My dogs dream ALL THE TIME. They twitch and yip and their lips curl up sometimes. It's hysterical! LOL But I've never seen a cat dream. Do they do the same thing?

Fall is just around the corner. You can feel it in the air. Isn't it funny how you can literally feel things in the air? I love the feeling of Fall. I hate what comes after it. Actually, I begin hating it when the leaves fall off the trees, the grass turns brown and the flowers die. It's depressing. Brown is not a good color for me. Then Winter has to come and make it even worse! I used to adore Winter when I was a kid, though. Gotta' love those snow days from school!! But now? No way. You can keep all the snow (except for the first snowfall of the season. that one is always cool), and you can DEFINITELY keep the cold!! I don't do cold well. Not well at all. How 'bout you?

Big Brother 8, Fall, Autumn, Winter, Snow, Cold

God rest their souls and heal the hearts of their loved ones. May it never, ever, ever happen again.

September 11th, 9/11, Anniversary of 9/11

Dick has been horribly mean, cruel, vile, crude and rude, bordering on humiliating verbal abuse, and BB has never stepped in ONCE. I can't believe they have let him spout the things he has! Oh sure, they don't show the television viewing audience even a fraction of it, but the live feed viewers, such as myself, have seen every awful minute of it. In fact, CBS only shows you what they WANT you to see in a very strategic manner, thereby skewing your ideas and opinions about the house guests. Those of you who only watch the televised episodes probably don't know that Daniele is a spoiled rotten brat, who treats her father like crap when she doesn't need him for anything, then uses her love as a bargaining chip when she wants something. He does ALL her dirty work for her. She makes the most horrible suggestions of what they should do to people, then he goes and does it. She's as foul-mouthed as he is, and EXTREMELY spiteful. SHE'S the one who has orchestrated the latest attack on Zach, telling her father that they should (paraphrasing)"make America and Jameka think he's racist, and ruin his job, his life and his reputation". Yeah, how's that for a nice young lady? NOT! (You'll probably see some of it on tomorrow night's show, but I promise it won't show the very mean, nasty things Dick said to Zach)

The lastest HUGE thing to come out from the viewers of the live feeds is the following video, in which Dick is heard telling his daughter, Daniele, how he cheated in the game by getting secret messages in a letter from his son when he was Head of Household -- STRICTLY against the rules! But has CBS done anything about it? Of course not!! They want the finale this week to include a Donato (Dick or Daniele) as winner, no one else, and are positioning it to happen. I guarantee if anyone else had done that, they would have probably been kicked out of the house! Can't say they didn't hear it, because they hear and record EVERYTHING. They are, after all, Big Brother. Here, listen for yourself:

Doesn't it make you sick how they're laughing about it? What's way worse, though, is the fact that CBS did nothing about it. How could they? It would ruin their plan for a Donato to win this thing. As my favorite web site for everything Big Brother said,

Big Brother no longer has any resemblance to reality and it is no longer a fair game. It's simply manipulated and scripted for ratings. Even blatant cheating is allowable so long as it does not change the direction Big Brother wants the show to go. It's been obvious for weeks that Big Brother is engineering a Donato win. This is just more evidence.

It is very sad that that the people who produce this show have traded the integrity for a ratings point.

Very sad, indeed. What a ripoff!

CBS, Big Brother, Dick, Daniele, Zach, Jameka, CBS Engineering the Win

In fact, if you go visit the Los Angeles Criminal Lawyers Blog | California Criminal Defense Law Forum right now, you'll see a great post about the Spector case, written only as a trial lawyer could. They give both sides of the story, just as you'd see in the courtroom, leaving it up to you, the reader, to decide what you think. Scroll down the front page and you'll see many other entries dealing with important and timely issues in today's society. You can even leave comments regarding your own thoughts on any post. I think I'll put this blog in my bookmarks. Even though I don't live in California, I'm sure there is a lot of information there I could find useful, if not simply interesting, educational and enlightening!

LA Criminal Law Blog

I've been trying to figure out why this happens. I've done everything I can think of, including running the repair command for my entire database. Nothing changes it. Guess I'll have to call my web host -- again! *sigh* If any of you have any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Web Site Problems, Wonky Web Sites, Commenting System Problems

Thanks! :)

Curves, Working Out, Gym for Women, Curves for Women

Well guess what? Today I discovered socialbib. What is that, you ask? It is a great new web site where students give their used text books away for free, and then receive the text books they need for free, saving them hundreds of dollars! This is how it works:

You join socialbib -- which is completely FREE -- then add the used text books you want to GIVE away, and then the used text books you want to RECEIVE, and then get matched up with someone who has the books you want, and with someone who wants the books you have. Simple! If you haven't seen the price of college text books lately, you have no idea what a great idea this is! I wish there had been something like this when my boys needed it! I still have my daughter to send through college, though, and believe me, I will be keeping socialbib in my bookmarks!

socialbib, socialbib.com

Secondly, and keeping in line with that post, I'd thought I'd share a personal accomplishment with you guys. :) I will preface it by reminding you that for a very long time now, I have been "hiding away" in my house; away from life, away from most people. That changed with the recent change in my medication, as well as the recent trip I took with my daughter. On said trip, we did A LOT of walking. More than I've done in eons! Upon returning home, I told my daughter that I didn't want all that good walking to go to waste, so we agreed to walk together every night (she's a BIG walker; walks all over the place all the time!). So, we began on Monday, and have continued to do so every night. Well, I reached a milestone tonight when I walked a whole mile -- without stopping, and at a quick pace! Now, that may not seem like a very long distance to those of you who walk all the time and have done so forever, but for me it is HUGE! I was so happy, and so proud of myself! I emailed my bestest bud, Debbie, almost immediately. LOL! Then I decided to tell all of you, too. I have a feeling that before long, I'll make it to TWO miles! Yay!

Walking, Daily Walks, Walking For Health

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SmartAff.org