The studio took me to Chi-Chi's for one last margarita. I'm going to miss this job; by far it is the best one I have had. Great people, great perks. I'm not bitter about it ending, though. I feel strangely calm. Four years ago I would have been panicking, but four years ago I was not as grounded in my faith as I am now. It's weird, but I feel a sense of peace, as if I know everything is going to be okay, as if I can tell God has something else planned for me. We'll see.

Seriously, the movie was better than the second one, but nowhere near as funny as the original. The entire movie seemed like a constant setup for a joke that never happened. My favorite character in the series, Frau Farbissina, was wasted completely. Her entire role consisted mainly of leering and squinting, and the first time she appeared onscreen I thought the actress who played her originally had been replaced by Lily Tomlin. I don't want to give too much away, but the opening bit was probably the best part of the film. Michael Caine was good, too, but he was much better in Little Voice.

We don't see many movies these days. If we do, we go to the Naro Cinema and sit in the balcony. They tend to show foreign films and indies, films one wouldn't normally find in a multi-plex, which is where we ended up today. One thing I like about the Naro is that they don't run annoying slideshows of popcorn advertisements while Movie Tunes blares the latest hit song from pop singing sensation Diphtheria. Play some Tull for once!

At least we got to see the trailer for The Two Towers. I may just have to camp out for that one.

I have a "guestmap" now, from Bravenet. Leave your mark, let me know where you are.

Tim Drake is, hopefully, back home from World Youth Day in Toronto. He posted a rundown of events. He needs to get back to me about splitting a table at the Catholic Writers Festival. I've already mailed in the fifty bucks. Right now I'm printing business cards and CD-ROM labels -- promotion on a tight budget is not fun.

That's Malc's shirt hanging from the doorway.

I even made my own fan sign. It appears to be a fad among people with webcams. You find a site you like and send them a sign through your webcam:

1. What is your favorite snack food? Does anyone you know have weird tastes in snacks? I love salty things: Doritos, greasy corn chips, potato chips of any flavor. Remember that old Lay's jingle, "Nobody can eat just one?" That was written for me.

2. Ever caught yourself saying "well it can't get any worse" and it does? What's the story there? Just this week it got worse. First I'm laid off work, then I find out a close relative is going in for surgery. When it rains, it pours.

3. I have a super-short attention span, and it always was my downfall in school, especially math class. What's your attention span like and how has it served you? It varies. I can concentrate when I'm writing, but sometimes at the computer I multi-task to the point that nothing gets done.

4. Do you believe in the existence of extra-terrestrials? No. I figure if they exist, they would have made their presence known by now.

5. What do you think of the whole "crop circles" phenomenon? I think the college kids who make those things really, really need a hobby.

6. Ever had a time where you begin visiting with someone you don't know all that well and just find you "click" like long lost pals? Tell me about how that came to happen, and who was it? What kind of things do you have in common? I don't think that's ever happened to me.

7. When I was at the cemetery a few weeks ago, I began to recall my Dad's funeral so many years ago. It is so vivid, sitting there in the family room as his friends passed by and paid their respects, the music, his face, the tears. What funeral do you remember most vividly? My grandmother's, probably because it was the last funeral I attended. The eulogy sticks out in my mind, especially.

BONUS: How can I forget you, girl? You can't. Deal with it.

Malc's grandfathers were both coal miners in the West Virginia. If you have seen the film October Sky (or read any of Homer Hickam's books) you will get a good idea of how his parents and their parents lived when they were younger. It takes some steel guts to go down into the mines day in and day out for a living. God bless them.

Finally cracking the Top 40 this week is Come On, Get Lively, a weblog still floundering in infancy and guided by the very neurotic, very unemployed Kathryn Lively...Enough about that, though, it's time for our long distance dedication. This one comes from Malcolm Lively from across the hall, dedicated to his lovely wife. Here's Offspring with "Why Don't You Get a Job?"

Hell, why stop at forty? I'm not a quitter, damn it! Dhani Harrison, Dhani Harrison, Dhani Harrison.

Gentlemen:

I recently spent two hours of my life watching the very, very dreadful 3,000 Miles to Graceland on HBO. As much as I would like those two hours of my life back, I can instead only ask you this: Why? Why did this waste of celluloid have to be produced? What in the name of everything sacred possessed you to agree to be attached to such a project? Were you blackmailed into doing this film? Was it necessary to fill every plot hole with an exploding gas station? Is the person who wrote the screenplay still allowed to work in the industry? This blog contains more compelling dialogue than the clichéd drivel spewed forth onscreen.

Please, stick to the avenues with which you are familiar: dancing with wolves (Kevin C.), mindless comedies with your domestic partner (Kurt), and William Shatner impersonations (Kevin P.). Let sleeping Elvises lie.

Under the past employment section they want to know your salary history. I can see some assistant manager looking over mine and wondering if I'm playing a prank. Of course, I don't dare hand it over before my severance runs out, in the event I do get a call. A job's a job, who is to say whether or not I can afford to be picky?

I used to be overweight; in fact, I am still a few pounds over the ideal weight for my size. I like fast food as well, though I'm of the belief that only I am accountable for what I do to my body and what I put inside it. If I eat an entire pint of Cherry Garcia and gain five pounds as a result, I'm not going to blame Ben and Jerry. I'm going to blame myself for doing something so irresponsible. Delicious, but still irresponsible.

I'm just about finished with the edits on Blair Wing's House of Cards. She had an interesting story, and I believe we tweaked it enough to make it more plausible. This is the first time I have edited another author's work for publication, and now I have a contract to edit works for Wings ePress. It worries me somewhat, because when this book is reviewed, I will be reviewed as a competent (or incompetent) editor, and I need to save my worries for when Saints Preserve Us is published.

In the meantime, I finally have the time to work on my presentation for the first Catholic Writers Festival this September in Steubenville, Ohio. I will be speaking about electronic books and the future of Catholic fiction, though the speech I am preparing tends to cover more ground on e-books than anything Catholic. I don't know I'm even preparing a speech, anyway; my session is at nine in the morning and I'll probably just babble for an hour about things unrelated. There is good news, however. I'm allowed to have a table in the publisher's market, so I'm teaming up with some other CWA authors under the FrancisIsidore name and we're going to sell our books.

One that is finished, I can concentrate on the backlog of books I have agreed to review. I have ten in the queue right now, and this includes an e-book I accidentally misplaced on my computer and discovered last night. I have never let the queue grow this large, but luckily four of the books have been read. It's only a matter of psyching myself up to write.

1. How long have you had a weblog? According to my archives, I started in April of this year.

2. What was your first post about? I quoted Arlo Guthrie's "City of New Orleans." I happened to be listening to the song at the time.

3. How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one? I haven't changed addresses or names, but I have changed the tagline several times, as well as the template.

4. What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else? Blogger, duh. Eventually, though, I would like to move this blog to a server with PHP so I can offer skins and other neat stuff.

5. Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place? I'll read what I can find, and what interests me. However, I really don't have the time to go hunting.

Speaking of, S&H is now offering Greenpoints over the Internet. The concept is similar to old days of stamps and booklets - you spend a ton of money for "points" to redeem for things you don't really need.

Some sadder Beatles-related news to report: actor Leo McKern has passed away. If you're a mystery fan like me, you'll know him as Rumpole of the Bailey. If you're a sci-fi fan like my brother-in-law, you'll know him as No. 2 from The Prisoner. If you're a Beatlemaniac, again like me, he will always be Clang from HELP!, the filthy man who was filthy in his filthy Eastern ways as he tried to cut that ring off of Ringo's hand. RIP.

I was skeptical about going at first, since Steve Perry is no longer with the group. I had heard the new singer, Steve Augeri, was good, but a voice like Perry's is difficult to duplicate. IMHO, Perry has one of the most powerful voices in rock music. Usually when a major music act replaces the lead singer, it is the kiss of death.

Well, it seems I owe Mr. Augeri an apology. He was in exceptional voice tonight, and the rest of the band just kicked ass (loved Neal Schon's "Star-Spangled Banner" a la Hendrix). At times I closed my eyes and Augeri sounded just like Perry, particularly during "Lights" and "Open Arms." He is a perfect match for the group.

I had never seen Journey in concert before, though they come to the area often. I'll definitely consider a return trip. Even Malc, who doesn't consider himself an avid fan, enjoyed himself, and his musical tastes are more eclectic than mine. He told me an interesting story about the time Journey came to Miami for their last tour with Perry, back in the mid-to-late 80s. This was one of the major acts touring the US at the time, and people were pretty psyched about seeing them perform. The radio station sponsoring the show, however, had other plans.

We don't know exactly who was responsible, but somebody at the station thought it would be a nifty idea if they bought out the entire show (about 10,000 seats) before tickets went on sale to the public. In doing this, people could get tickets only by listening to the station and being the correct caller at appointed giveaway times. Malc claimed this caused an uproar, and there were rumors that the band was not too happy to hear that this was happening. The plan apparently backfired because the station could not give away all of the tickets in time, and they ended up just giving them away to anyone who stopped by the station the night of the show. He doesn't know how many tickets went unused, but still we wonder whatever happened to the wizard who thought up such an idea.

Speaking of MIAs, I checked the Internet for information on Steve Perry. One fan page reports that he stills performs, and that VH-1 is trying to get in touch with him for a story, probably a Behind the Music episode. That I wouldn't mind seeing. Of course, one wonders how a Journey show would compare to the Mötley Crüe story, the standard by which all other Behind the Music shows are judged.

For the longest time I have wanted to read that book again, as well as the sequel, The Promise. I don't recall much of the first book beyond the relationship between the Orthodox Reuven and the Hasidic Danny. Mrs. Atwood, my English teacher, often mentioned the symbolism of "eyes" and "vision" in the story. I'll have to read the book again.

It is interesting that I learn about this now, since in Norfolk there is currently a movement among the Orthodox Jewish community to build an eruv. I've been following the progress of the movement through the newspaper and local gossip, and the proposal has met with some resistance. I do know that if the eruv is approved, it won't be far from where I live. I may even be in the eruv eventually, I don't know. I am still not familiar with the concept, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

In preparation for my own presentation at the first Catholic Writers Festival in September, I've read many an article debating the legitimacy of electronic literature. Maybe this will be a shot in the arm for the e-book industry.

At the church we had two large candelabras placed on either side of the altar. Now, the main air conditioner ducts were also in front of the church, and the candles were constantly being extinguished. So somebody decided for the duration of the ceremony that, in order to keep the candles lit, the AC should be turned off! Malc later said he looked over at me and was touched because he thought I was crying. A closer look told him that in actuality I was sweating.

At the restaurant where the reception was held, three other receptions were supposed to take place. However, we had our room until five, so we didn't think there would be a problem. Hah. All through the reception the paranoid restaurant owner kept asking me when the waiters could clear away the food. I told her the second she took away the food there would be a riot. You don't take away food when my relatives are eating, you just don't do it. Later my mother said that every time the woman made a beeline towards me she and my mother-in-law intercepted. I swear not two minutes after Malc and I cut the cake this lady had the waiters boxing up the uneaten tiers! We still had the room for another hour! People came up to my mother later and asked why they didn't get any cake. Mom ended up serving it at a second reception she held for the family at our house.

I tell a good horror story, but there is a happy ending. We're still married. It's the vows that count, not so much the party afterward. For our tenth anniversary we're getting one of the Krispy Kreme wedding cakes and renewing our vows in Vegas. Now that sounds more like a party!

To set the record straight: I never met the guy, and his name is not implanted in my META tags to get people to come here. I'm an avid George Harrison fan (just look at the cliques page, for crying out loud), but as far as I know Dhani has not done anything major aside from some recording work with his father (the legendary unreleased George album, I'm told, features his guitar work). But, never let it be said that I don't give people what they want. Of course, if I keep this up I'll be getting Dhani Harrison references for a while. It's good for him, I'm sure, but I have books to sell:

Like, omigosh, he is so cute!

Who should be forbidden to make movies? Lorne Michaels. No more crappy SNL skit movies!

Which movie has the best music? Tie between A Hard Day's Night and Dead Presidents.

Who is the best cowboy? The Duke

Which movie makes you laugh every time? Dr. Strangelove and The Blues Brothers (aside from Wayne's World, this is the only SNL flick worth watching)

What movie probably isn't that good, but you love it anyway? The Cannonball Run

What movie character is most like you? I'd say I was a mix of Jack Black's character in High Fidelity and Olympia Dukakis's in Moonstruck.

Which movie "surprise ending" did not surprise you? Hannibal; I had read the book and I admit I checked the spoiler sites on that one to see if they would do the original ending.

For what movie should they make a sequel? I'd love to see Caveman 2: Barbara Bach's Revenge. Hell, I'll write the script.

Which actor/actress would you watch in a movie for no other reason other than that he/she was in it? Kenneth Branagh, baby!

1. Do you remember your first encounter with computers? Tell me about that. Ah, yes, the Commodore VIC 20! Mom bought this to use for her teaching. You remember the VIC 20 did not come with a monitor, so she had to plug it into the television. Seems she always did so when we were trying to watch Happy Days.

Mom ended up becoming the computer science teacher at Sacred Heart. We had a whole laboratory full of these things at one point. To run a program you had to load it from a cassette tape!

2. How late can you stay up and still be functional the next day? Do you do that very often? I was up until one last night, and I feel fine now.

3. When was the last really good hug you got from another adult? Who was it and what was the situation? My husband, after I told him about my job.

4. One thing about children is that they all like to draw. We all shared the same ability and skill level at one time. Do you still like to draw? (Not do you think you draw well, or do others, but do you like to?) If not, how come? Did you get discouraged at some point? I don't draw very well, so I don't do it. I save my energy for this thing.

5. I way overslept today. I had to head to work with no shower (don't get too close), and I am not in the best of moods. Have you ever overslept on a day you had something important going on? What's the story there? Once I overslept because a storm knocked out my alarm. I was way late for class and had to drive 45 minutes to school; I burst into my medieval English literature class with only five minutes to go. Thankfully the professor did not make a big deal out of it.

6. Ever go shopping for something you know you can't afford? You look at it and even think about how it will look when you get it home, somehow you justify the cost and believe it can happen? And just before you get to the counter come to your senses? What was the last thing you almost bought, but thought better of it? And why the heck do we do that to ourselves? We've been doing that with air conditioners all week. We did get one for a reasonable price, though.

7. (It begins again...) It's all such a blur now. I'd asked you to help me wake up but the alarm didn't go off. It was 10 till and just I knew I'd be late. Somehow you got me here on time. How did you do that? I know this guy named Dale Earnhardt, Jr., see, and he has this car...

BONUS: Can't you see, you belong to me? Can't you see/ can't you see/ what that woman /she been doin' to me...

Come on, everybody sing now: "I'm gonna take a freight train/ down at the station..."

I brought only one box to work today, thinking I would only need one box to pack. I think instead I should have called Mayflower. So far I have unearthed the following:

• A copy of Albion's Seed my father loaned me three years ago. It's over 900 pages long, and I finally have the time to read it
  
• Various Star Trek action figures, still in their blister packages; I got Wesley, Locutus, Picard as Dixon Hill...I'm thinking yard sale!
  
• A scrapbook of articles I wrote for the NB Forrest Senior High Rebel Review
  
• The CD-ROM that came with Perl 5 for Dummies (I sold the book on Half.com)
  
• A free sample of Pond's Age Defying Cleansing Towelettes that came in the Virginian-Pilot one day
  
• A bunch of tapes I got from Catholicity
  
• A package of search engine information I was supposed to send to Ashley in Atlanta; Ashley was let go, too, so it looks like I saved the company some postage
  
• Pre-printed address labels from three apartments ago
  

Crikey, Fukui-san! You won't believe what this bloke has on the barbie.

Sorry, I'm in a weird mood.

I hope I do find something soon. Considering what I need to do to promote Saints Preserve Us, I'm going to have to spend quite a bit of money in order to (hopefully) sell some books. Right now I'm shopping for the best deal on promotional items like postcards, bookmarks, etc. I have Microsoft Publisher, so I'll make the flyers myself. I'll also need to save up some money to buy a few cases of the book when it comes out. I'll use a case to take to area bookstores and media outlets, and I'll keep a case to sell signed copies.

Yeesh. Those who assume people who have published books are automatically rich are dead wrong.

Now, it's raining, so we didn't bother going to see the Tides play. They were supposed to finish the game that was called last night on account of rain. Who knows how far behind schedule they are now?

I feel no different today than I did yesterday. I've only been downsized one other time, and I was still living at home then. I cried my eyes out, convinced that I had failed. That is not the case here, I'm told. At least now I have the pending publication of Saints Preserve Us to keep me going, plus the assuring fact that the last four people laid off in my area found work within the month.

I meant to mention earlier that my novel will be published in May. Saints Preserve Us is a mystery set in northern Florida and concerns the burglary of the body of a young girl due to be canonized. The style is similar somewhat to Joan Hess's Maggody novels. It will be available as an e-book and trade paperback, and hopefully it won't cost as much as Little Flowers does (though you can buy Little Flowers as an e-book for cheap at FrancisIsidore). In fact, you should buy it, right now.

That's right. Apparently I did not survive this latest round of layoffs, so at the end of this month I will officially join the ranks of the many, many jobless people out there. I'm not going to cry, though. In a sense, I feel a bit relieved. For the past two months I have been coming to work wondering if each day is my last. Well, this is one less thing to occupy my mind.

Thankfully we will not be totally destitute. Malc still has his job, and I currently have no pride, so I'll pretty much take anything that comes with health benefits. Well, good night. I'm off to HotJobs.com.

1. Where were you born? Jacksonville, Florida, the true capital of Southern Rock. We have .38 Special, Molly Hatchet, Skynyrd, and Blackfoot. Take that, Macon!

2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don't live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not? I really didn't appreciate home town until after I left. Of course, when I left Jax was when the Jaguars came to town, and the city continues to grow. I would like to get back to Florida eventually, if not Jacksonville then somewhere close.

3. Where in the world do you feel the safest? I used to feel safe at work until I came in this morning. The cell phone I keep in a box was out on my desk and plugged into the wall like somebody was trying to use it. The office is full of phones, why would anybody bother tampering with it? What else have these people been doing to or taking from my desk?

4. Do you feel you are well-traveled? As far as the US goes, I would say yes. I've been to every state in the Union save for five, and I've been to Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas and Jamaica. Heck, two weeks ago I was in Beckley, West Virginia.

5. Where is the most interesting place you've been? Beckley, West Virginia. Kidding

I really can't pinpoint one place, I've seen so many interesting things. I've been to LA and New York City, and I've been to much smaller towns, towns that don't even have McDonald's.

I don't consider myself a prude -- I've read and seen some pretty racy stuff in my day, but I don't make a habit of it anymore. Lately I find myself more repulsed than titillated by certain things (like that terrible Elimidate show), and I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or because I'm more grounded in my faith than I was ten years ago.

I've also never successfully written a sensual (read: graphic) love scene for a story before. I've tried, but I have come to realize that I am of a more humorous mindset. I'm reminded of a passage Lewis Grizzard wrote in one of his books (it might have been Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny: You Know Them Taters Got Eyes) about how he once tried to write a sex fantasy story. It started out in an ice cream parlor and ended with himself, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and a pint of Rocky Road. You'll have to find the book and read for yourself, I can't possibly do it justice.

Right now I'm working on three projects of my own, two of which will not contain any sex. Sorry to disappoint you, but they are both cozy mysteries and romance is not exactly the priority in either one. The third novel, however, will have a romantic slant, and thinking about the novel I'm editing leads me to wonder exactly how far I should go when writing such a scene myself. This third project is going to be a comic thriller in the vein of Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich; it's going to be quite a departure from Little Flowers.

As a writer, I have a duty to entertain. As a Christian, I have a responsibility to uphold my beliefs and morals. Now, being a Christian does not mean one must repress his/her sexuality. Despite what certain members of the Hollywood say, the Church does not teach that sex is evil. Sexuality is holy, a gift from God, and it is not a gift to be abused. I'm going to have to watch myself so I don't abuse the gift God gave me. This should be interesting.

St. Peregrine, patron saint of cancer patients, pray for us.

If you're on a Ricardo Montalban kick, check out this radio interview he did with Catholic Answers Live back in 1999. Hope the link still works, it's a great interview.

Speaking of the US Congress, TV's Cooter is running for office again, this time in Virginia. Ben Jones of The Dukes of Hazzard once served as a representative in Georgia, but was eventually ousted by Newt Gingrich. He's not running in the district in which I live, but I'm curious to know more about his platforms (particularly his stance on abortion) since he will be running in this state.

Who comes up with this stuff? I would love to work in product development for a food company, and sit around a table full of boomers and brainstorm about how we can get people to eat even more sugar. Now, I like doughnuts fine, and I love regular Cap'n Crunch, but I'm looking at this cereal and wondering if this is the first thing I should put in my mouth after I wake up in the morning. I wonder if the guy who came up with this was inspired by that John Belushi skit from Saturday Night Live.

Speaking of the Cap'n, here's an online petition to get Quaker Oats to promote him to Admiral. I think it's about time.

We finally got our hookup so we can watch Star Trek: the Next Generation again. Last night was the "Hotel Royale" episode where Data, Worf, and Riker get stuck in a cheeseball hotel casino created by aliens who used a bad novel as a template. There was an amusing line from Picard that I had not noticed before: he said it wasn't like Riker to defy orders. Duh! It's always like Riker to be defiant! It's always like Picard to be defiant. If these guys weren't defiant, it wouldn't be much of a show.

Great book, I strongly recommend it. Besides being well written and being an enjoyable read, I think it is a book that Youth and Young Adult ministers and moderators should take a close look at and consider adding to their libraries. It is very instructive in an appealing way.

1. Have you ever sold anything through an online auction? What did you sell and did you make very much? I sold a few Star Trek: the Next Generation action figures on Yahoo! Auctions, and made squat. Seems those things are really only worth what somebody else is willing to pay, and apparently either all the Trekkers have the figures or they are notorious cheapskates.

2. Have you ever bought anything through an online auction? How was your experience? I used to collect prayer cards, and I have bought collections through eBay.com. I have never had a problem with any transaction.

3. Do you like the sun? Getting a suntan? Have you ever had a bad sunburn? I have a bad sunburn now.

4. Are you a vegetarian? Why? If not, have you ever considered it? I am during Lent. Each year I try to see how much longer after Easter I can go without meat. Usually I'll last a month or so. I was off dairy for the longest time, but fell off the wagon after 9/11. I'm trying to give it up again.

5. Suppose you are getting into your car after you've just made your purchase from a store you visit twice a week. You suddenly realize you had a .35¢ item in your hand and you forgot to pay for it. What would you do next? (what *would* you do, not what *should* you do) I have no idea. I'd probably play the coward, walk back in and try to replace it without anyone seeing.

6. Sometimes it seems that there is just not enough time to do everything that must be done. Was there anything you wanted to accomplish this weekend that didn't get done? You mean besides finishing the edits for Blair's novel and Ronda's devotional, writing the second draft of Pithed and updating Tony's website? No, aside from not doing any of that I was fine this weekend.

7. What is your favorite game to play with a group and/or an individual? (board game, computer game, athletic, etc.) Scrabble!

BONUS: One headline, why believe it? Why would they lie?

• "nude alaskan girls" (sorry to disappoint you)
  
• "Pete" (I'm not sure if they were looking for Pete Vere or Peter Tork)
  
• "For colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow isn't enough" (this is a play, one I haven't mentioned on this blog until now)
  
• "my own homepage and am a hot lesbian and let's get together" (no comment)
  
• "kreskin aliens" (this is old news, people)
  

I tried checking the headers but only find this:

Received: (qmail 13583 invoked from network); 12 Jul 2002 00:39:50 -0000

Received: from unknown (HELO ?domain) (80.11.88.20)

Internic doesn't list the IP address above, so unless somebody within my company is doing the spamming, which I doubt, I don't know what to think.

Sorry to sound so morbid. My mood is about to lighten soon. Among the photos I found one of me and my brother, taken in Louisville almost ten years ago. We were visiting my grandmother, and this picture depicts us having returned from White Castle:

Yes, that's a K-Mart in the background; we were standing on the miniscule front lawn. This is one of my favorite pictures of me with my brother, see how thin we were?

Also, St. Augustine Catholic is supposed to write a blurb on Little Flowers. I need to check to see if that's still going to happen.

• George Harrison is stabbed in his home in 1999
  
• Ted Nugent gains guardianship of a seventeen-year-old girl who becomes his girlfriend (eww)
  
• Madonna wins an award for acting (how many of us saw that coming?)
  
• The plane crash that killed most of Lynyrd Skynyrd
  

One member of the collective is my friend Jayne Hitchcock. You may have seen Jayne on television; in my opinion she is the foremost expert on Internet harassment. Her latest book Net Crimes and Misdemeanors is finally going to be released at the end of this month. I know Jayne must be relieved; it seems as though she has been working on this book for years. She practically lived it. While I can't endorse the book until I get my own copy, I checked out the website and the book appears to be a "must-have" for any Internet surfer, particularly those with children.

Wouldn't you know, though, not long after posting I get a classifieds request. I sent it out as a special notice. Here it is if you are interested:

Writers Wanted: The Catechism of the Catholic Church Internet Study Group (CCCISG) seeks volunteers to write guest columns. The CCCISG is looking for short-to-medium length pieces on topics pertaining to the readings for the months in which the pieces will be featured. Detailed writer's guidelines are available by contacting the site editor, Jerome Kropp. Projected readership for this site is expected to be over 200 by September.

Take a look at the slideshow of winners if you want a good laugh. You just might find your own bridesmaid there. :-) I must admit, though, none of the winners compare to the legendary Titanic disaster dress.

• "Joe DiMaggio shower"
  
• "Rosie O'Donnell coke bottle"
  
• "Alaskan bachelorette results"
  

Now I'm working on damage control, and there's a lot of work to do. It doesn't help that my sister just sent me this recipe for S'Mores Cheesecake Squares. I wonder how it would taste if I used that vegan "cream cheese"?

1. Have you had to repair anything lately? Did you do it yourself or have someone else do it? Check the earlier post for my sob story about the power going out in our apartment. Hopefully the electrician is there right now. Malc has yet to call me at work and complain.

2. Do you work out or exercise? Or is there anything you do each day for your health? I try to get in three bike rides a week. Lately I haven't been able to do so.

3. Are you a modest person? That is, would you be embarrassed for someone (an acquaintance, a friend, a stranger) to see you nude? Yes.

4. Some smells that I just can not stand are bags of grass clippings that have sat in the hot sun for a few days, burned hair and vomit (although, thankfully, I have not had to smell them all at the same time). What are some odors that you just can not stand to smell? Cigarette smoke tops the list. That's why we moved, because in our old place the smoke came into our apartment through the ventilation ducts. Nobody in the building would admit to smoking, though. Ugh.

5. Are there any social situations that make you uncomfortable? Yes, all of them.

6. Has a friend or an employer ever asked you to do something you felt was unethical? What was it and what happened? A relative asked me to play along with his "story" in case we ran into somebody he knew. Luckily we did not run into this person so I was off the hook.

7. (continued) Well, we are not yet at our destination, though the way you described it, it sounds simply amazing. What is the first thing we should do once we get there? Find a bathroom.

BONUS: In this whole world, what is fair? I'll let you know when it happens.

So instead of wishing Ringo a happy birthday on my blog last night, I plowed through Wal-Mart in the middle of the night looking for 20 amp fuses and a cool place to stand. I only hope I didn't fry my home PC.

I like the idea of a group weblog. It's interesting to see different voices aligned on the same site with a similar purpose. I've toyed with the idea of starting such a blog myself, one that allows fiction writers and poets to post and share their creativity. I think I mentioned it once to Tim Drake when he wrote his article on Catholic bloggers. Maybe I'll call it "The Interior Blog" after my favorite Catholic writer, St. Teresa of Avila.

I just need to work on a system of payment for contributors, though. With FrancisIsidore, the writers should expect to see royalties for works sold, and it should be no different for a fiction blog.

For this year's vacation, we were planning a bicycle trip down A1A, but given my performance on the bike today I think we may have to shoot lower.

Also, true to my prediction, Serena won today. Now Hewitt just has to win tomorrow.

Yes, I went back and corrected the boo-boo you caught. Never let it be said that I'm not anal about these things.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

I have been asked to review Michael Rose's Goodbye, Good Men by a reader. This book is the talk of many a Catholic blog, and my interest has piqued enough for me to want my own copy. Perhaps when I have completed reviewing the books in my current queue I will check it out (it is a long list, though). Right now I'm finishing up The View From the Grass Roots, a collection of columns by New Jersey journalist Gregory Rummo, then it's on to The Mask of Ollock by Robert F. Kauffmann.

On top of this, I'm planning re-open FrancisIsidore submissions. I am a masochist.

• The entire Dr. Strangelove screenplay
  
• When you love them they drive you crazy because they know they can. - Rose, Moonstruck
  
• John: It's blue glass; George: Must be from Kentucky, then. - Yellow Submarine
  
• This isn't a hospital! It's an insane asylum! - Maj. Houlihan, M*A*S*H
  
• The chaperone's job is to see that no one else is having any fun, but nobody chaperones the chaperone. - Dorothy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
  
• Bernie: Can you help me? I have lost my sense of direction.; Kermit the Frog: Have you tried Hare Krishna? - The Muppet Movie
  
• (after Clouseau destroys a piano) Mrs. Leverlilly: That's a priceless Steinway!; Clouseau: Not anymore. - The Pink Panther Strikes Again
  

If only I could get her to review Little Flowers...

When I published, however, my comments mysteriously disappeared. Wonderful, another thing to fix.

My office building has four floors. We are on the first floor, and currently a renovation project has forced the construction crew to close the first and second floor ladies' restrooms. Now, on the first floor there is a small fitness center with one men's room and one ladies' room. The ladies in my office and I use this restroom for the time being, as do the other ladies on the first floor. There are a number of us, and there is only one stall.

Here is the dilemma: because of the number of women using this restroom (we drink a lot of water here) there have been times I have had to wait. Sometimes I don't mind, but sometimes waiting is very, very painful. I look at the empty men's bathroom and wonder if I should use it or press my luck and take the elevator to the third floor.

This happened not long ago, somebody was using the ladies' room and the men's stall was empty. I was the only other person in the center. I won't tell you what I did just yet. I'd like to know what other people would do in such a situation. I remember reading once about a woman who used a nearly empty public men's room at a concert because the line at the ladies' restroom was too long. She was arrested. I don't think that will happen here at work, though.

We had a house full of furniture crammed into a loft, and now we are in a much larger place. Our goal is to pare down our belongings over the year and not be tempted to buy new stuff that will eventually have to be carted down three flights of stairs. We moved out of an old building with an elevator into an old building with stairs. I now have thighs of steel.

This move could not have come at a worse time. I have too much to do, and most of my work in on my PC at home, which is still in a box. Oh, it's going to be fun week. I told Malc we would probably be better off just leaving everything packed since we'll probably move again next year. We have moved seven times in the eight years we have been married. All this weekend I looked down at all our stuff piling up on the front steps of the building as we moved, silently wishing somebody would make off with a box or two. Less stuff for us to haul up three floors.

I'm so tired. I'm not even spellchecking this post, so let Nihil crab all he/she wants about this blog.

Yeah, I know, it's time to get a new postage rate scale at work. We're on a tight budget, mind you.

More news as it happens. Pray hard.

Maybe Alaskan bachelorettes are using Google to find Dhani Harrison and somehow they are ending up at my site. I don't blame them. Dhani looks like just his father, he's gorgeous!