I love to play the lottery. I don’t do it often and I never spend more than one dollar, but when I do, I spend DAYS dreaming of all the things I’d buy/have/get if I won.

I get a lot of happiness out of that dollar! So, for grins, let’s play my favorite game — the LOTTERY QUIZ GAME!

If money and time WASN’T AN ISSUE, what would be your …

1) PERFECT PET: (the sky’s the limit!)

2) PERFECT HOUSE: (size, location, etc — What would the kitchen look like? The bathroom(s) Would you have a pool? Hot tub? Stables? Fourteen car garage? Two-story library?)

3) PERFECT HOBBY:

4) PERFECT VACATION: (time, place(s), type of housing, people you’d take, and more!)

5) PERFECT AUTOMOBILE/RIDE:

6) PERFECT CHARITY TO SHARE YOUR BOUNTY:

7) And what PERFECT GIFTS would you give the ONES YOU LOVE?

Come out, my peeps, and play the LOTTERY QUIZ GAME!

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I love book trailers. I love how they set the tone for the book, allow for a seemingly secret glimpse between the covers, and rev up the reader for release date. I love the texture, the talent, and oh, don’t forget the teasing. That provocative glimpse of lace or a look, a haunting face or the sight of a silky gown, all tempt me to the cash register, book in one hand, debit card in the other.

Here’s an example of a book trailer that had me panting for the book:

Pretty good, eh? The book was even better, which says something, indeed.

Still, one of my friends told me she didn’t care for book trailers because they never gave her enough information. She’d rather see a whole scene from the book. I don’t know how I feel about that. On one hand, it would be nice to see the hero and heroine really interact. On the other, it would be difficult to set the scene without giving away the entire story.

I think I’ll just stick to the overview method. But then again, an entire scene would be nice . . . oh heck! I don’ t know!

Do you watch book trailers? Do they ever make you want a book you might not normally buy? What do you think about the two book trailer methods — overview, or one scene?

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I’m an enthusiastic but permanently amateur techie. That means I love all of the new gadgets, but can’t figure out how to program my TiVo. But once I figure it out, step back! This chick can make a gadget SING!

Yesterday, Apple Computers announced their newest device, the iPad, a hi-def, high memory, long-battery-life touch screen micro-computer.

Some tech reviewers loved it while some seemed disappointed it wasn’t more … startling. In the past, Apple has dazzled the real techies with brand new technologies and this one, while cool, seemed almost familiar. Some tech reviewers felt the iPad was just a very large iPod.

But I disagree. From an amateur techie point of view, I think the iPad is beyond the iPod. In fact, I think it’s the shape of laptops to come.

Why? Because it can do about anything a laptop can do. Hook up to the ‘net? Got it. Word processing? Got it. Hi def for watching movies and video? Got it. Touch screen for easy composition of emails and documents? Got it. Excellent speakers and microphone for Skype? Got it.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

The best part? All of this for $499.

That’s right … $499.

Here are the basic specs:

Size: 1/2 inch thick with 9.7 inch display

Weight: 1.5 lbs

Cost and memory: $500 – $700 depending on memory –16 gig, 32 gig, 64 gig)

Battery: 10-hour life, a month on standby (standby means that if you set it down, it will go to ’sleep’ up to a month and still have battery power)

Other amenities: bluetooth, wi-fi, speakers, built-in micophone, ipod/iphone connector and more.

But what about ebooks, you may ask? Just read what the Telegraph has to say about this:

“Zooming, scrolling and flicking through photos feels just like rifling through a real picture album, while the huge virtual keyboard, with its big, responsive buttons, is a pleasure to type on. The iPad excels too, as a gaming device, with stunning graphics and simple controls. But the best feature is iBooks, the e-book reading software that knocks Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader into a cocked hat.

Novels are beautifully presented, lined up on a virtual bookshelf, complete with sleeve art.

The pages of the books resemble proper printed pages, with a sense of texture and authenticity to them. Turning pages is achieved with a swiping gesture, or a single tap in the right-hand margins.

Downloading books is incredibly easy too, with the iBookstore built straight in to iTunes, and a wide selection of books from five major publishers already available at launch.”

Nice, eh? I’m excited. Nay, THRILLED.

So, what do you think? Would you use an iPad? Do you think this is just a big iPod? Or do you agree that perhaps it’s the face of future laptops-to-come? And would you read an ebook on this product?

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My dad is a careful man. He is careful with his responsibilities, the feelings of those he loves, and money.

We didn’t have much money when I was young. One year he bought the cheapest six foot plastic Christmas tree he could find. It not only didn’t look like a real tree, it didn’t even look like a real plastic tree. It looked more like a child’s school project of starched green tinsel glued at odd angles from a large pipe cleaner. But it was OUR tree and we loved it.

As the years passed, we took that same tree in its huge brown box out of the attic and assembled it in the living room.

When I turned eight, one of the bottom branches snapped at the base as we were assembling it. A year later, two more went. And then another. My dad decided it was better to leave the bottom row off to make room for the presents.

By the time I was eleven, the branches on the next level of the tree had begun to break. But as I’ve said, my dad is a careful man. When duct tape didn’t prove up to the job, he used fishing line. Over the next ten years as more and more branches broke, my dad meticulously tied them to the ones above. And when those broke, he tied them to the branches above that.

He took hours to do this. Hours, but no money. He was happy. We had a tree, so we were happy.

The tree stayed in our house for thirty years and when we eventually retired it, it was beyond fragile. We used to kid that when the heat kicked on, the tree would sway in the breeze.

It was old, broken, ugly . . . and loved. Oh, how we loved that tree. But most of all, we loved my dad for taking the time to string our broken tree into place, year after year.

Do you have any broken but beloved holiday items or memories?  Stories about turkeys that were overcooked, favorite ornaments that have been glued together, or tree topper stars that have been bread-twisty-tied in place? What broken holiday memories are golden in your house?

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Hot Cop and I took his daughter and three of her friends to see New Moon last night and we were treated to four tweens dressed in Team Edward and Team Jacob memorabilia who were in complete and utter ecstasy. I can say without hesitation that those chicas have big time Movie Crushes.

Their excited chatter made me remember my own enthusiasm when Star Wars came out and how I fell totally in love with Hans Solo. I didn’t have a Team Solo t-shirt, but only because they didn’t make them.

In recent years, I’ve developed a huge Movie Crush on Strider from Lord of the Rings … oh and have I mention Cap’n Jack from Pirates of the Caribbean?

Have you ever had a Movie Crush? Who was it? Did you buy a poster, t-shirt, or coffee mug in honor of them?

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Last week, Hot Cop and I went for a lovely trip to the mountains of Eastern Tennessee. We had a wonderful time; the woods were autumnal and crisp, the air was fresh and chilled, and the mountains were layered in snow. It was magical.

But then we went out to eat. We found a little cafe and went in and were rather surprised to discover that the owners were so fond of the phrase “Have you eat yet?” that they printed it on their menus. When our waitress wasn’t looking, Hot Cop and I took this lovely cell phone photo.

Yup, that’s right. “Have you eat yet?” is their slogan.

Of course, this sort of thing doesn’t just happen in the South. Let’s move on to Portland, Oregon, shall we?

Yeah, that’s s’ome s’ort of s’ignage! New’s paper’s, indeed!

Moving on, this is from a website for a business in Hayden Lake, Idaho:

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to go back to the fucture. At least, not without some sort of counseling and a complete medical waiver.

Furthermore, I would want to go in a DecLocreacn.

How about this article headline which came from a fair Northern state:

Who knew they put the Want Ads on the front page? Or in this case, the Wanted Ads?

I have a few questions about this ad. How much WILL they pay in reward money for shooting a cop? And do they think Dog the Bounty Hunter might be interested in this particular venture?

Have you seen recent examples of bad grammar or poor sentence structure? Have you noticed that it seems to be happening more than ever, or is that just me? Last week I read that some high school English teachers are blaming instant messaging and texting for this ‘new’ turn of affairs. What do you think?

P.S. Suzanne Enoch’s newest book, The Care and Taming of a Rogue, comes out tomorrow! I’M SO EXCITED! EEEK!

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Author’s note: Before I begin today’s blog, I’d like to announce that THE LAIRD WHO LOVED ME, the final MacLean Curse book, will be released today. I now return you to your previously scheduled blog.

I have the best brother in the world. For one thing, he’s a sweetie — kind, generous, and darn funny. For another thing, he’s a total computer guy and yet he reads tgb and has been sending me some very interesting ideas for my blogs. In fact, here’s one he sent me the other day.

***************
Karen,

For your blog — I saw this in Scientific American, thought it was both hilarious and scary… (I’m paraphrasing…)

In November, 2008, a woman filed papers for divorce on the grounds that she “caught” her husband’s “Second Life” avatar being “overly affectionate” with someone else’s avatar. The Husband countered that his wife drove him to virtual infidelity because of her addition to World of Warcraft.

If you didn’t know, an Avatar is a “virtual digital character” that people use in on-line “environments” like Second Life. In these environments, they direct their character, interact with others, and apparently, even have simulated sex with other avatars.

Lots of threads …

Roy
*********

Out of curiosity, I googled Second Life avatars and oh-my-gosh, are those things SEXY. It’s apparently a world of scantily clad, busty and gorgeous avatar women mingling with some very-Gaston-looking men. And all these pretend people do is leer sexily at one another while attending pretend ‘real life’ events in their Second Life lives — they go to movies, listen to bands, shop at the mall, go to dinner, and even raise money for charity.

To me, the noob (that’s ‘newbie’ to you non-techs out there in the audience), the whole thing just boggles the mind.

And THEN, I found this:

************
This week Kristina Dell published an article in Time Magazine (How Second Life Affects Real Life) that explores how the attractiveness of her avatar influences how she behaves when not immersed in the Second Life virtual world. She references Jeremy Bailenson, head of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University where he is an assistant professor of communication studying the way self perception within virtual realms affects behavior.
**********

Did you get that? There’s a frickin’ Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Standford U, peeps. A LAB. And there are full time professors studying things like oh, how your WOW wizard’s complex spell levels helps you become the super accountant at Fred Murray’s Accounting and Dance Emporium.

I’m dazzled. Intrigued. And afraid. I’m afraid I could really get into this and I’d never write another word again. It could happen. I almost fell off that cliff when I subscribed to netflix.

Tell me, you hip people of the real world, do you play World of Warcraft or Second Life? Do you know someone who does? Do you think it would be cheating if your husband’s or boyfriend’s avatar had an online relationship with the sexy avatar I’ve used as an example here? Would that be grounds for divorce? What do you think about this ‘immerse yourself in a second skin’ sort of game playing? Do you think it’s good for our egos? Or is it a modern-day Pandora’s Box?

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