Month: February 2011

Paranormal Court

On By Michel McDonaldIn Paranormal, TV2 Comments

It’s late at night and I’ve watched all of my shows for the evening so I do a little channel surfing and find this show on TLC called Paranormal Court.  It was halfway through so I activated the Start Over feature with my cable box and I am so glad that I did because this is such a good show.

I’m a skeptic with some of the psychic shows because occasionally they do cold readings which is where they say something hoping for a response.  The ones who are spot on with just about everything are the ones who really impress me and this guy was spot on with every reading and with everything in the readings.

This show says that it’s a court show but not in the traditional sense like Judge Judy has, instead this show have people who want to settle a dispute that only the deceased person can settle and he is a way to talk to the deceased to help settle the dispute.

This guy gave me the chills every time he would say something that was so spot on, there is no way that these were cold readings.

The last case was this teenage girl who was drugged and left in the basement and was having a seizure with boards on her legs and they were making a sound, a rhythm if you will.  Well he made that sound on the table with his fingers and my entire back was tingling from the chills that I got lol.

I went to the TLC website to find out the days and time this show airs but they don’t even have it listed and as far as I can tell this was the only episode so I feel so lucky that I got to see it because I hardly ever watch TLC.  Nothing against TLC, I just don’t watch their shows.

If this airs again I will want to know so I hope they put something up on their site soon so I can add a reminder on my TV page so I know to watch it again because it was a good show.  People say that they know what their deceased loved one would want, well they really don’t.  This guy will tell you exactly what that person wanted.

Thank You Mr. Obama For Making DOMA Unconstitutional

On By Michel McDonaldIn News, PoliticalLeave a comment

I got this email today from Freedom To Marry:

Michel,
Great news.

This morning, President Barack Obama took a historic step that will help advance the freedom to marry. On the recommendation of the Attorney General, the President has determined that sexual orientation discrimination should be presumed unconstitutional.

Because of this, the Department of Justice today concluded that the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” is an unconstitutional and indefensible law.

As litigation challenging federal discrimination has unfolded, Freedom to Marry called on the President to protect same-sex couples and their families by applying heightened scrutiny against sexual orientation discrimination. And today, the President heeded our call.

Will you join me in thanking the President for refusing to defend this discriminatory law?

http://freedomtomarry.org/ThankObama
Make no mistake–the President’s decision didn’t happen overnight. It was the result of thousands of marriage supporters like you who have shared your stories, made phone calls, and sent e-mails demonstrating the harm that DOMA inflicts on families.

Until pending federal cases shake out, or Congress takes action, DOMA will still be in effect, but the President and the Justice Department are now on the right side of history, standing against anti-gay discrimination.

This brings us closer to Freedom to Marry’s goal of ending federal marriage discrimination and fully protecting all loving and committed couples and their families.

Join me in thanking President Obama for taking this crucial step towards ending the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from marriage.

http://freedomtomarry.org/ThankObama

We still have a long way to go, but I know that with supporters like you, Michel, we’re closer to victory.

Thanks for all you do,

Evan Wolfson
Executive Director

Not only is our president making history by being the first African-American president, but he is also making history by making sexual orientation discrimination unconstitutional.

I don’t know why it has taken this long to make it unconstitutional. I mean, it’s unconstitutional for everyone else to be discriminated against but it’s ok to discriminate against gay people?  I don’t know why it took until the year 2011 for this to happen.  It’s amazing to me how far we have come and I guess better late than never right?

So thank you Mr. Obama for your support of gay people’s rights.

Break From Restoring Blog

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I have to take a few days off from restoring posts for September 2009 all the way through June of 2010.

First of all it’s hell on my hands.  With Carpal Tunnel syndrome both of my hands are getting numb a lot from this, resting my wrist on the laptop or even on the gel mouse pad is bad for my wrists because it puts way too much pressure on my wrists.  If it were softer then I might be ok but for some reason it’s a really hard surface.  After a few hours my wrists are in agony and my eyes too, I can’t see anything because I’m staring at the computer so much.

We have family visiting next week and I really need to put this blog on hold until the house is clean.  It’s not a mess but there are some places that need to be cleaned and it’s embarrassing when people can spot the dust I didn’t clean :D.

I would say give me a few days but I’m sure it won’t take that long, but you never know for sure.

Sonic Scrubber

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I LikeLeave a comment

I am fascinated by all of the “As Seen on TV” products because they all look like they are good products that will help people, especially people who have arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome which I have.

I’ve wanted to buy this for such a long time because I hate to scrub grout and having to scrub with a regular bristle brush hurts my wrists, pinches my palms and hurts my shoulder as well.  I’ve been afraid to buy it because I’ve bought a few as seen on tv things and not all of them work out with the exception of the one touch can opener which is really good for my condition.

I saw this Sonic Scrubber at Christmas time at the Walgreens but didn’t get it because I didn’t have the money.  Well, I decided today that I would go see if they still had it because I really need to clean the grout in the shower because we have guests coming next month and I don’t want to have to scrub.  So I bought it and it really works.

I opened the glass shower door and with the Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-A-Clean Power Sprayer I sprayed the tiles where you step into the shower, it was really bad.  I gave the scrubbing bubbles some time to work and then I came back in and started scrubbing and within seconds the dirt started coming out of the grout.  That would’ve taken me forever with the regular scrub brush which is why it has gotten as bad as it is, it is too painful for me to clean so I can’t clean it and now I can.

I bought the Sonic Scrubber as well as the attachments because I figured I might as well get them while they had them.  The one I bought isn’t yellow and black like the image above, it is orange and blue, attachments are the same color combo so it all matches lol.  Also when I went to look at their website it shows me that it’s now owned by Scrubbing Bubbles – SC Johnson & Son.  This must be from when they first came out because the packaging has no mention of Scrubbing Bubbles or SC Johnson and the date on it is 2007.

This product is great and I highly recommend it if you have bad hands and can’t clean with as much elbow grease as you used to when you were younger.

If My Nook Has Skin, Is It Alive?

On By Michel McDonaldIn NookLeave a comment

I bought a Skin for my Nook from DecalGirl.com last weekend and it came today.  When I heard the mail drop into the slot earlier I got all excited and ran to the door but the large envelope wasn’t out there so I figured I’d get it tomorrow.  Then the doorbell rang and it was the mail carrier saying she saw it in the back of the truck and drove all the way back over here to deliver it.  I’m so glad she did.

Last night I was getting antsy and went on YouTube to see how easy or difficult putting the skin on a Nook would be and the person who posted a video showed how easy it was, how it’s not sticky at all and it doesn’t stick until you press on it so I had hope that I wouldn’t screw it up.  Well, mine was sticky, so sticky that the backs touched as I was taking it off the sheet it was printed on.  I almost ripped it while trying to take the pieces apart.

Putting it on was really difficult, in fact you can see some white on the sides of the front here and there where there isn’t supposed to be white but I couldn’t help that.  It stretched in some places and there is a crease at the bottom which I’m afraid to fix out of fear that I’m going to stretch it out even more.

The back on the other hand was as easy as apple pie.  Maybe because it was one solid piece or maybe because the back of the Nook is less shiny and more rubbery than the front of the Nook.  I don’t know, I just know it looks so awesome.  I was getting so sick of looking at the beige color of the Nook, I wanted something that was colorful, although this is really dark it still has color in it.  And it has a library which makes it even cooler to me.  I’ve been wanting to buy this skin for my Nook for such a long time and I thought why not, just do it and I did and I’m so happy I did.

The only downside that I see is when I’m holding it I can feel the edges of the skin on the back since it doesn’t go all the way around.  I made a stand to have it sit on so I don’t have to hold it so I can use that when I’m reading at the desk.  I also made a case for it so I will put it in there when I want to hold it.  Either way it’s a win for me.

Ok now I’m off to read more of this book I’m reading before shows come on.  Later!

Moon Glow

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Darrin went out to the car then came in the house and told me to come look at the moon.  I was like yeah yeah yeah I’ve seen it and he said no really, come look, it has a cool glow around it.

I went in the house and got my camera but it didn’t come out too great so I had to do a video in order to take a screenshot to get a good image.  The glow was so huge that my camera couldn’t get the whole thing in the frame so I just got the bottom of it.

I don’t know if this is visible to everyone but it certainly is visible here in Bakersfield right now.

Borders Sad Chapter 11 News

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, News1 Comment

I was watching Attack of the Show today and they spoke for 10 seconds about Borders filing for chapter 11 and closing some of their famous book stores but they didn’t go into as much detail as this email that I got today did.

Click the image to see it full sized to read the sad news.

My guess, and this is just an uneducated guess, is that they are doing poorly because of the rise of eBooks via the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook. Borders does sell their own eBook reader called the Kobo as well as many other e-book readers like the Sony and Velocity Micro Cruz (which I have never heard of).

The main reason I bought a Nook was because of its online store ability as well as it’s ability to allow me to upload epub files from other websites which the Kindle would not allow. The Kobo and Sony readers were in my pro and con list but unfortunately didn’t meet my criteria due to the lack of an online store which I’m finding out now that the Kobo has. I don’t think it had it when I was making my decision.

Well as far as I knew they were doing great because we’ve been to the Borders over on Stockdale Hwy here in Bakersfield and they are always busy, then again it could’ve been that day but who knows. I’m almost positive that this is just a temporary economical setback and that they will eventually recover from it and be as strong as they always have been because they are a great store to go in to.

It is sad news to hear because I love to read and I think it’s very important for parents to teach their kids the joy of reading at an early age so they enjoy reading in their child, teen and adult years as much as I love to read today. Maybe knowing that they aren’t doing so great people will make the trip to their local Borders store hoping for a sale which might end up boosting their business causing the opposite of what is happening now.

Don’t let your local Borders store go out of business, go shop there for some books, movies, video games, toys and whatever else they sell. Install the Borders app on your cell phone and start buying e-books from them too.  Show them that you want them to stay by giving them some sales and keep those people from being out of a job. Times are tough and the last thing we need is for more people out of work.

I’m Almost Finished Restoring Posts from Blogger

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

When my blog crashed, I started restoring posts from YouSayToo from that date going back to July 2010 but then decided to go back from the beginning of my blogs time in 2007 which I had to get from my Blogger blog.  For the last couple of weeks I’ve been restoring 2007, 2008 and 2009.  I just finished restoring July 2009 and there are only a couple more months worth from 2009 on Blogger.

I think that when I am finished with all of this I will wipe Blogger clean because there are some posts that I purposely didn’t restore because they were terrible posts.  I’m shocked they got posted at all.  Since I didn’t delete them during the restoration I won’t remember what is what so I’ll just wipe it all.  I can export my blog from over here to there easily but I’ll wait until everything from YouSayToo is restored to do that.

This has been so hard on my wrists from copying and pasting and resting my wrists on the laptop and the hard gel mousepad from the desktop so I decided to start wearing my wrist splints which has helped today.  Unfortunately, I have no splint for my eyeballs which are so blurred from staring into the screen for 8 hours or more per day.

I don’t know how much longer it will take me to finish restoring everything but I’m working as hard as I can since I am one person.  To prevent this from happening again I’ve had my blog email me backups once a week which I will store on my desktop just in case it crashes again because I refuse to go through all of this one more time.

Happy Valentine’s Day

On By Michel McDonaldIn HolidaysLeave a comment

Remember when you were a kid and your mom bought you a box of valentine’s day cards to write the names of each and every one of your classmates on then pass them out?  Isn’t it funny how the boys gave each other valentine’s day cards and all the girls gave each other cards?  Why is it that we did that, and it wasn’t by choice either, we were forced to do that.  The teacher would send everyone home with a seating chart so we knew exactly how many cards we needed and so we could write the names on each of the cards and envelopes.  We needed the names because even though we shared a classroom all day, we didn’t really know everyone in the class.

Do the schools still do that or are they so freaked out by homosexuality that they don’t do that anymore?

I was at Walgreens and I saw the Twilight valentine’s day cards and I just had to chuckle because when you think of giving valentines day cards, monsters are usually the last thing that you would want to associate with a holiday like this, or is it because they are vampires and werewolves in a love triangle that make it so special?

Well my childhood is long past, my relationship with Darrin has lasted 17 years and we are way past the valentine’s day spirit.  I think that is a holiday reserved for younger relationships but I’m sure there are women who would disagree with me.  We still give each other cards and candy but it just doesn’t mean that much to either one of us anymore.  It’s just another day for us.

And on that note, Happy Valentine’s day to you.  Don’t get too many cavities from all the sugar.

Indigo Adults – eBook

On By Michel McDonaldIn IndigoLeave a comment

Where to start… I found out about a month or two ago from talking with a childhood friend of mine that I am an Indigo Adult.  He was telling me about how he is overly aware of things, you know like his soul, his mortality and just everything.  You know when someone tells you to stop and smell the roses every once in awhile?  Well, he smells the roses every second, not just once in awhile, all the time.  Well, I’m overly aware too.  I always have been.  He’s telling me all of these other things and I’m just sitting there thinking oh my god, me too.

Everything he is telling me is just ringing true with me and the more we talk, the more information and I just start feeling a little overwhelmed and need to take a step back.  I understand it all but my brain can only process so much information at one time, especially at the beginning.

So I found this eBook in the B&N Nook store called Indigo Adults for $9.99 but I couldn’t afford it right away, I finally bought it on January 20th but I didn’t actually start reading it until the 4th because it just so happened that my blog bought the farm right around the same time I bought this book.  I tried reading it but I couldn’t focus on it because I was too busy thinking about my corrupt blog database.

I started reading it on February 4th and I finally finished reading it today and my mind is completely blown away.  There were so many things in there that just had me thinking OMG ME TOO!  It talked about children with ADD and I was diagnosed with that in my 20’s but I was also diagnosed with a learning disability when I was a child in elementary school so I’m thinking that because they didn’t have ADD back then, I should’ve been diagnosed with that instead.  Although I guess it’s both but still, it helped me to learn something about myself in that respect.

I wanted to discuss some things that I highlighted but when I went to look for an example, all of my highlights were completely gone.  They disappeared from my Nook for some reason, that bugs me because I spent so much of my time highlighting instead of reading.  So I have nothing to offer as an example besides the ADD thing.  I guess the only thing there is left for me to do is read the book again.  I’m going to read it again anyway because I think that my mind was so blown away that I didn’t learn a few things so I want to go over it again.

Do this test, if you can relate to most or all of those then there is a good chance you are an Indigo Adult too.  I relate to everything in that bullet list.  Knowing that there is a name for it helps me in regard to helping me understand myself a lot more than I did before.  I would suggest that if you relate to those things in that list then this book will blow your friggin mind.

I am interested in hearing from some Indigo adults to compare notes with.  If you are an Indigo Adult, please, leave a comment and I will definitely get back to you.