Crocheted Swiffer Cover

On By Michel McDonaldIn Amplify, craftsLeave a comment

What an idea! I never thought of this. If you have a Swiffer, instead of wasting money on buying new swiffer pads every darn time you have to use it, just make your own. You can make as many as you want so you don’t have to keep washing the same one every day, instead make about 5 or them and when it’s laundry day you can just wash them all at once with your regular laundry.

Anyway, here is the pattern and an image of the final product at the end.

Amplify’d from www.favecrafts.com

Mop or Sweeper Cover

Instead of using disposable covers, crochet an economical reusable cover for your flat mop, sweeper or duster. The cover easily slips on and off for cleaning. For the knit version of this cover, see the Mop Cover Knitting Pattern.

Materials:

  • Yarn: Lily® Sugar’n Cream Ombres (56.7 g/2 oz/ 86 m/95 yds) #00133 (Shaded Denim) 1 ball
  • Crochet Hook: Size 5 mm (U.S. H or 8) crochet hook or size needed to obtain gauge.

Instructions:

Main Piece
Ch 37.
1st row : (RS). 1 sc in 2nd ch from hook. 1 sc in each ch across. Turn. 36 sc.
**2nd row : Ch 1. Working in back loop only of each sc, 1 sc in each sc across. Turn.
Rep last row until work from beg measures 4 ins [10 cm]. Fasten off.**

Sides (make 2).
Ch 12.
1st row : (RS). 1 sc in 2nd ch from hook. 1 sc in each ch across. Turn. 11 sc.
Rep from ** to ** as for Main Piece.

Join Sides to Main Piece : Place 1 Side at each end of Main Piece and pin outer edges tog. With RS facing, join yarn with sl st in any corner. Ch 1. Work 1 row of sc around outer edge (through both thicknesses of Side and Main Piece at each end), working 3 sc in each corner. Join with sl st to first sc. Fasten off.

Note : Slip each end around the dusting tool’s base. When one side is soiled, flip the side pockets inside-out and use the opposite side to keep cleaning! The ridge stitch design helps trap dirt.

Read more at www.favecrafts.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/8xop

AMAZING Child Singers

On By Michel McDonaldIn SingersLeave a comment

I thought I would share these amazing videos:

Money Saved for ebook Reader

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, NookLeave a comment

I officially have the money saved up for an e-book reader. Although I can’t really buy it yet because I have to make sure we have enough money for food for the next 2 weeks before I can spend the money I am saving. I have to get my priorities straight lol.

So I’m leaning towards the Amazon Kindle. I wanted to get the Nook because of its color screen but heard how slow it is and it’s not worth my time. I don’t need little icon book covers to make me happy.

I didn’t want a Kindle because most of my e-books are in pdf, .prc, .lit, .mobi and .epub format. I know you can read pdf files on a Kindle and I’m ok with not being able to use the dictionary I guess. I probably won’t have that feature with a Nook with pdf files anyway. I don’t really care for a Sony because I don’t really care about library books, oh and I don’t care about lending books with Nook as I have no friends with a Nook anyway lol.  And the Nook, Sony and Kindle stores all have pretty much the same prices for e-books anyway so store options don’t matter.

So, Kindle it is. But, again, I have to wait until I get my next check to make sure I have the money and then some.

Although I still have a lot of regular books in paperback and a hardcover book coming that I won from GetGlue.com. No not the zombie one, they offered me another one. But when I do get the Kindle the first e-book I will buy will be the first Sookie Stackhouse novels books 1-8 despite it’s hefty $55 price tag. I say hefty because it’s paperback version is only $35 so I’m over spending on it. Although, who knows what I will do. I’m unpredictable lol.

Oh and I’m going to also buy the Kathy Griffin book “Official Book Club Selection” and her moms book Tip It. Although, those 2 in e-book format are expensive so not right away.

After those then I will start buying the charmed novels and maybe more buffy novels. I have a few in paperback but not in order. Also there are star wars novels and star trek novels, let’s see, supernatural, smallville, roswell… too many to list. Let’s just say I’m going to be pretty busy. Oh and that’s not including all the books I plan on buying from Rainbow ebooks too lol.

Will I have enough time to read all these books that I plan on reading?

I do have a LOT of e-books on my computer right now so I’m not exactly sure how much money I will be spending on e-books right off the bat because I will be converting all of them to Kindle format so I can finally read them. Yes, I have a lot of unread e-books waiting for me. So the only money I’ll need to spend right away is on the Kindle then I won’t have to spend any money for quite a while until all of my current books have been read.

Ah the life of a book-worm.

Update: Ok so I was wrong, check this out.  The new kindle has this –  Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights.  That’s perfect!  That’s all I wanted to know lol.  Now the Kindle IS my choice to buy.  Cool, now I can buy all .pdf files anywhere and transfer them over to my Kindle.  This way if one store has an e-book cheaper than Amazon then I can buy it’s pdf file.  And I can buy Rainbow ebooks in all pdf file formats and not worry that I can’t read them.  Awesome!

True Blood – Blood Bites on Twitter

On By Michel McDonaldIn TV, TwitterLeave a comment

If you are a huge True Blood fan as much as I am and you also have an addiction to Twitter then you probably already know about Blood Bites.  I didn’t know about it until this week thanks to Sam Merlotte, the role player that is.

Every Wednesday night you can go to the Blood Bites website or you can just watch them tweeting live.

The fun part about it was even though it was probably a 5 or 10 minute scene in the show, it took an hour to tweet out but what made it fun was that they were tweeting what they were thinking and how they were feeling and who they were looking at.  It was like reading a novel.

Occasionally some other True Blood role-player would role-play on my list but they weren’t a part of the “show” so they most likely didn’t show up on the “Blood Bites” website.

I didn’t even know about this until now and I kick myself in the pants for not knowing but I really wasn’t into Twitter until very recently so how could I have known.  After all, nobody told me about it.  I also don’t remember seeing anything advertised on HBO about it.

Hopefully if you are a fan of the show and wouldn’t mind seeing them role-playing in Twitter then use my list .  I have all of the True Blood role players, well, I might be missing some, I don’t know.  I keep finding out every day that there is someone I didn’t have in there so I add them.  Some of them require permission to view their tweets too which I found out when I wasn’t seeing both sides of a conversation even though I was following them and they were on my True Blood list.

What is an easier way to see their live tweets is using TweetDeck or some program or website that streams the tweets as they are tweeted so you don’t have to keep refreshing the page.

They don’t just role-play on certain days, they role-play all freakin’ day long.  I’m glued to TweetDeck all day now, I should be doing other things but I can’t peel my eyes off the True Blood list lol.  It’s like I’m addicted to that one list of mine, I don’t care about anything anyone else is saying on Twitter except for the role players lol.

I wonder if any other show does this.

Note that the role players and True Blood on Twitter is not affiliated with True Blood or HBO.

Ultimatums Suck

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog, Friends and FamilyLeave a comment

Has anyone ever given you an ultimatum or have you given anyone an ultimatum? They are not fair. There are certain times when it is ok to give someone an ultimatum like when a husband is drinking, gambling, cheating etc. But family members should never give you an ultimatum to choose your lover over them.

When I was 17 years old, my mother gave me an ultimatum. Leave my boyfriend Robert out in the cold in a strange city without anywhere to sleep and without any transportation back home or choose her and continue living at home. The choice was obvious. I would rather be homeless myself than let a deaf person wait outside for me to never return to help him find a place to sleep for the night. He was DEAF!

How cold-hearted are you to allow any human being to be homeless for the night until they can catch the bus in the morning back home?  I told her to at least let me call his mom to pick him up and she said no, let him freeze.  What a cold-hearted bitch!  I hate saying that about my own mother, rest her soul, but that’s how I feel.

It was 1987 and he couldn’t call his mother on a cell phone and speak sign language with a video call like you can do today. He had to use a TTY which by the way was at his house in Simi Valley. He took the bus to see me after 2 years of not seeing me and waited until the last-minute after the last bus had left for the day so he was stranded without any way of getting home. I asked a co-worker who lived down the street from me if he could stay with her on her couch and she said yes, I just had to bring him there. He was out of cigarettes so I went back to my house to get him a pack and that’s when my mother cornered me and gave me the ultimatum and that’s the night I became homeless.

My cousin just called me and he went to visit his sister in another state with his wife. His wife is 15 years older than he is and because some people don’t approve of such age differences, she was treated like crap. His sister gave him an ultimatum. His wife or his sister. That’s not fair. You know? You can’t make someone make that decision especially when they are married. What if he did choose his sister? What then? Is she going to take him in? No, she’s not. So now that he has chosen you, he’s going to be homeless all because you made him choose you over the love of his life.

Why do that? Why not just suck it up? You don’t even live in the same state, just deal with it. She is the person he chose to be with so live with it. It’s not your decision, it’s his.

I am in a relationship with someone who is 21 years older than me. You know what my sister said to him when she first met him? “How old are you?” And she didn’t ask it nicely either, she had this disapproving tone in her voice. It’s like, who asked you for your opinion? It’s none of your business. This is who I chose to be with so deal with it.

I think if someone is coward enough to make this type of ultimatum then they deserve it when they are the one being rejected. If someone gave me an ultimatum I am going to choose the person they are making me leave for them. There is no doubt in my mind that I would tell them to go to hell just as I told my mom.

True Blood on Twitter

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, TV, TwitterLeave a comment

You know, I’ve been a fan of Vampires my entire life, anything supernatural actually. I make it a point to watch any movie or tv show that has vampires, witches, werewolves and anything else that is supernatural.

When True Blood came on HBO I was psyched that I had HBO to watch it on lol. But mainly I was just psyched because it was a new vampire show.

I’ve only recently discovered the awesomeness of even though I’ve been on Twitter for a couple of years now. Since I started following Sam Merlotte on Twitter I noticed that he was role-playing. I started following another True Blood character that he mentioned and notice that person was role-playing too.

Thanks to Sookie Stackhouse, I discovered there is a website with all the True Blood character twitter names. “You can find all of us here: http://tweepml.org/?t=460087 #TrueBlood”. Go there and follow them all.

I also created and then some. If you check out that list you can see that the characters are actually tweeting each other. It’s like watching the show but all text, no visual. It’s sort of like reading a book.

I love the role-playing, it’s the best way to get my True Blood fix during the week. Since there are only 3 more episodes it will be interesting to see if they continue to role-play after the season is over until the next season.

I have not started reading the Sookie Stackhouse books yet but I will be buying the 8 book boxed set soon. I was hoping that it would be the first book(s) I bought on a Kindle that I plan to buy in the next month or 2 but considering the Kindle version is $55 and the actual paper book version is $35, I might just buy the paper book version instead.

Well, back to the drama on Twitter.

Queens of Drag NYC is Official

On By Michel McDonaldIn Gay, TVLeave a comment

It’s finally official. The Queens of Drag tweeted this just now:

Hello? It’s official folks – You’ve been asking and we’ve been DRAGging our feet to release the news, so check… http://fb.me/BpZrvp4A

That link opens to the Queens of Drag page on the gay.com website. The new reality show about these “Queens of Drag” will be appearing only on gay.com. I had hoped for logo but no such luck. But the good thing about it being on a website is that you can stream it anytime you want instead of being tied down to a particular date and time.

I still don’t know what the show will be about, I can only assume it will be similar to the “Real Housewives of…” with all the drama and reality of these female impersonators.

They always say, don’t judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes. Well, don’t judge a drag queen until you have walked a mile in her high heels and by walking I mean watch the show lol. You know you’re drag-curious.

Roast of David Hasselhoff

On By Michel McDonaldIn Celebrities, Humor, TVLeave a comment

Tonight was the night that the Roast of David Hasselhoff was on and I completely spaced out. I totally forgot about it. I usually set the cable box reminder but it slipped my mind to set it.

Darrin was in my room and he took control of the remote (typical male behavior) and we were watching some lame documentary about fish. Like I care about fish. I don’t want to be smarter, if I learn about fish then all the other stuff will spill out and I’ll forget all of my useless Buffy the Vampire Slayer trivia. Who do you want to play Buffy Trivial Pursuit with? The guy who watches fish documentaries? I didn’t think so.

So I noticed he was sound asleep anyway (typical, change the channel then fall asleep) so I grabbed the remote, turned on the guide and found the Roast of David Hasselhoff. I immediately change it and annoying as ever Gilbert Gottfried was on telling weird vagina jokes at Pamela Anderson‘s expense.

I laughed my butt off but Darrin kept waking up from my loud laughing and he would say what’s happening? So I’d have to tell the joke and then explain it because he didn’t get it, meanwhile I’m missing the next joke or 2 until I finally said stay awake so I don’t keep missing it.

It ended, it started over again and we watched it a 2nd time. It ended at 1:08am and I thought I was going to bed but no, I had to come and blog about it lol.

Ok, I know it’s a roast and I know that at a roast they make these horrible tasteless jokes. They are really bad like the one about Roger Ebert and Gary Coleman and how George Hamiltoncalled Hulk Hogan a fag twice. Excuse me? He could wipe the floor with your ass BROTHER! I know it’s a roast, I just hate that word with a passion. Can we please stop using that word? Even the most tasteless comedians wouldn’t say that word because they have more respect for gay people.

Look I don’t mind a good gay joke. I’ve told so many that were funny without insulting people, myself at the very least. After he said that I didn’t find anything else he said funny. I waited for him to get off stage so I could laugh at all the insults thrown in his direction.

Lisa Lampanelli is the funnies one on the Dais. She laughed her butt off with every joke at her expense. She loves to be made fun of because she knows that it’s all for the show and all in fun. That’s why I love her.

Anyway, it’s late, I’m sure it will repeat for those who forgot, if so make sure you don’t forget. He sings at the end.

Twitter Is So Junior High

On By Michel McDonaldIn My Childhood, TwitterLeave a comment

When I was a teenager in Junior high school I was targeted by the bullies for a daily beat down. I don’t know what made me the target, I didn’t act effeminate but I was accused of being gay and beat up for it. These kids who beat me up didn’t even know me. They never met me, they never talked to me, they didn’t know one thing about me yet they beat me up for being gay.

Keep in mind I was in the closet and had a girlfriend as my cover (who I met years later in a gay bar, turns out she was a big lesbian using me as much as I used her).

I was threatened every single day that I would get beat up after school so every day I ran home from school. We were only 2 blocks from the school anyway so I didn’t run very far but that is the reason my calves are so big to this day.

One day I was walking to gym class and I was running a bit late, there weren’t any people behind me, I was at the tail end of the crowd going to the gym. This kid came out of nowhere, ran up to me, kicked me as hard as he could in the nuts then ran away. I didn’t know who he was and I never saw him again. There I lay on the ground in the most pain I had ever been in my entire life. I was in so much pain I couldn’t see, I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t think. I lay there on my side on the concrete with my hands on my crotch. Nobody there to help me, no witness.

Someone found me and took me to the nurses office and for some f’d up reason I got detention.

Ok, I had to tell you that so I can tell you this. Yesterday, someone I follow on Twitter tweeted this:

“If you want someone to unfollow this Saturday, @markdavidson is a good candidate. Can’t believe someone can deal with him #unfollowsaturday”

Well, without knowing who the guy is, I retweeted that. Now, don’t you think that what I did was exactly what those kids in junior high school did to me? I don’t know Mark Davidson yet I ran up to him and kicked him in the nuts without so much as a hello, nice to meet you. I never read any of his tweets, I never read his blog, I just rt’d that without even thinking.

I sent him a @ mention last night after he retweeted my retweet telling him I was sorry. I woke up this morning and looked at my tweets and remembered that he told me to read his microblog for a few days and I’ll understand why this person tweeted that in the first place. Well, it’s not necessary for me to do that. I had no right getting in the middle.

So I guess this is my public apology to him. Here I am on my quest for equality and here I am the hypocrite and for that I apologize.  This is certainly a lesson for me that I will never forget.