I’m sitting on the floor of a hotel room (gross, I know) because I cannot sleep. Something slightly funny just happened. You know those random text messages you get from a friend you haven’t heard from in a while? Yeah, that just happened to me. Normally, this would make me feel good because someone was thinking about me, but this time it really made me smile because now others know someone was thinking about me, too. When my ringer went off, it woke up not only my mother, but also my grandmother who were fast asleep. Poor kids, they were all tuckered out. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try to get some sleep now. Big day of car-riding tomorrow, followed by some spoiling of the now one-year-old baby cousin!

As you probably know by now if you’re a regular reader of my blog, I absolutely love home improvement projects. I guess it’s because my parents were always doing something crafty while I was growing up. Now that I have my own place, I’m always finding something that I need to do. Just the other day, I had to put on a new toilet seat. The old one had cracked, making me feel a little sad about myself, so I had to put on a new one. It’s things like that which you can never really predict.

My mom just recently got some new office furniture, but she needed some bookshelves. I guess they ended up buying some, but they could have built them themselves. All they needed to do was search build bookshelf or something similar, or they could have bought a do it yourself DVD to help them learn. After all, knowledge is power, don’t you think? I wish I had taken that philosophy before I tried to change my toilet seat. On the back of the new one, it showed that the screws were under the bowl. I thought it meant under the top of the bowl, but inside. They’re outside the bowl, I came to find out after putting my hands all over the inside of the toilet bowl. DISGUSTING!!!!

Well, I did it. I saw it. Rob Zombie’s Halloween was exactly what I thought it would be. An average scary movie. It was average in the sense that the acting was terrible, but you just couldn’t pull your butt out of your seat to leave the theatre because you just couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen to the stupid girl who kept running upstairs when she should have been running out the front door. Isn’t it obvious? It’s a scary movie. Everyone dies except for the villain and the main character. As far as whether or not that’s true about this particular film, you’ll have to see for yourself.

For me, the only worthwhile aspect of the film was the backstory that was left out of the other installments of the Halloween series. The film also had some great music, which makes sense because of Rob Zombie being in charge. Also, the little boy who played Michael was definitely creepy. I think he was the only actor that had a true grasp on his character. That is frightening, since he was playing pure evil. I don’t want to ever be considered someone who has a true grasp on pure evil.

Overall, I was entertained, but this was certainly not any form of high art, nor was it a cinematic breakthrough. I give it a two/D/one star.

I want to remind you about Vontoo. Vontoo voice messaging is a service that allows you to send voice messages to lists of people simultaneously. Although this might seem like a marketing scheme, you shouldn’t be fooled. One of the benefits of Vontoo is that it is a permission based program. Utilizing “opt-in registration,” users only listen to the messages that they agree to hear.

A corporation could use this service to send important messages to their investors in situations where email or snail mail would not be beneficial. Furthermore, this would be a great thing for universities to use to contact faculty, staff, and students if there is ever a campus emergency and everyone needs to be on the same page. Likewise, it is a great way for a university to keep in touch with its alumni. Pacific University used Vontoo to publicize its “Pacific University Legends Golf Outing.” They used the voices of famous alumni to entice others to join in on the festivities. From a marketing standpoint, I think that what Vontoo has to offer is cutting-edge technology that deserves to be looked at as a viable option for corporations who want to add to their market.

I had to give a book report today. I feel like I’m back in middle school. I think I did a good job, but I’m always second-guessing myself. This is the first assignment I’ve had for my PR class, so I’m not very sure of what my professor’s expectations are. She didn’t really explain the assignment, she just kind of said “do it.” I want to start off on the right foot (although my marching band tendencies tell me to start with the left foot), so I hope I got a good grade.

Listen up all of you competitive sports types. There is a great website especially for YOU! You know who you are. The one who turns everything into competition. Drinking that Mountain Dew the fastest was the last challenge? Check out this website and you will be able to compete until you drop.

Yasmine Partners Inc. has put together a website where the members drive all aspects of the site. By submitting sports trivia, and answering questions, members will influence scoring and ranking, and determine which comments and news stories are most popular. Triviafix will continually strive to make the site the most current it can be. You want prizes! You’ve got them!

Here’s how it works. Sign up. As a member, you will submit your own questions, including audio and video if you want, and create your own trivia teams, and organize competitions. This website will quickly become your favorite social network. It will become obvious what level you will want to compete at. You will find that there are varied levels of members. Some are sports trivia pros, others are dedicated rookies. The main thing is that you will be getting your sports trivia fix. If you like sports trivia, this is the place for you!

At Triviafix, you can pinpoint the type of trivia you are interested in. That makes it possible for you to check the stats and even check on how other members are doing in comparison in certain categories. Monthly prizes are awarded to top players in all the sports categories. Fun! Fun! Fun!

I just got home from work and I had a looong day. I had two classes, office hours, and then a meeting with all of the other instructors for my class so that we could go over the test. My kids did fairly well overall. I had an average of 82% and my lowest score was a 60. That’s pretty high compared to some of the other sections, so I’m happy that most of my kids are getting the material. I did a lot of administrative work for my class today, getting ready for the rest of the semester. Hopefully my hard work will pay off.

It is going to be fun having my own place this Christmas. When I was in college, school pretty much shut down over the holidays. I will be ready to decorate my apartment this year. I found a nice website that has Unique Christmas Home Decoration Ideas. Unique is the word I look for when decorating my apartment.

Christmas Collectibles Today has some cool things. Since I’ll be starting from scratch, I thought it would be fun to have a themed Christmas tree. There are some great Disney ornaments.
They are a nice quality for a low price. Low price is in my budget! These ornaments are ringing with festive holiday cheer and Disney fun! Each ornament portrays a festive 3-D scene and is available through Christmas Collectibles Today exclusively from Ashton-Drake. They even come with a Certificate of Authenticity.

At home, my mom has always had bubble lights on our tree. Her family had them on the Christmas tree when she was a little girl. I found some pretty ones at Christmas Collectibles Today. These bubble lights depict the popular Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer television show. Each ornament has a different character on top. These would look very nice with the Disney themed ornaments. I am thinking about getting these for my mom for Christmas.

Collectiblestoday.com has nice gifts for all occasions. They are the place to find Thomas Kinkade figurines and Dept. 56. Many of us have special friends who collect the Dept. 56 Snowbabies. I have a friend who likes angels and another who collects turtles. I found a turtle music box at Collectiblestoday.com.

My sister likes things from the movie, The Wizard of Oz. I found a beautiful snow globe that has a scene from the Wizard of Oz. It is from the San Francisco Music Box Company. It has the witches’ hat on top. There is another one that I think she would like. This globe has the red ruby slippers inside. Very cool!

This site is going to help me with my decorating and my Christmas shopping.

I thought that when I rented my apartment that it came with cable. I found out it didn’t. That was ok because I have to do a lot of prep work for class. I also need to study. Besides, I have a DVD player and I can watch movies. I have been renting a lot of movies.

My DVD player died.

There is a great business networking site for those who are in business or are looking forward to starting a business. Direct Matches has over 65,000 members. That means that when you get ready to open your store front or even your home-based business, there will be someone who has traveled down that road. Networking is a great way to get good tips on starting a business.

Networking is also a great way to learn how to expand your business. Sometimes, business owners become stagnate and need a friend to get them motivated to take on a new line or expand the one they have. Direct Matches will put you into touch with other business owners who can guide you or tell of their experiences. Perhaps you want to put an addition on your building but don’t know where to start. There will be someone in the membership who knows just the guy to build you a quality addition.

Direct Matches gives free memberships. With that membership comes a business profile that others will find and contact you for your input. With Direct Matches you will get free advertising, free classifieds, and free networking. What a deal!

Direct Matches has had an 8 year success with their networking service. They are looking forward to many more years of service helping business people get together. Let them be of service to you.