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Political Correctness – The Hump Day Hmmm..

9 Comments Posted on July 25, 2007February 28, 2015 by Snoskred

Every Wednesday Julie Pippert from The Ravin Picture Maven holds a round table discussion. This week the topic is Political Correctness. I’m mentioning it up front in case anyone would like to give this topic a poke with a sharp stick themselves.

I would say my mother is the absolute queen of political correctness. Go along to get along. Let things go off your back like water off a duck. Don’t rock the boat, especially if you’re sitting in it. Don’t speak about how you feel. Don’t tell anyone your real thoughts. Keep up appearances at all costs. If someone is being a bitch, don’t call them on it. Take the high road. Rise above it. Blah, blah, blah.

She has been like this as long as I have known her. I wish I knew what earth shattering event caused her to shut down and install roller blinds over her real thoughts – but it was probably nothing more than someone disagreeing with her when she expressed an opinion, and she felt uncomfortable, so she decided the easiest way out is just.. shut up. She hates confrontation and will do anything to avoid it – unless she’s one on one with someone like me, who has never once barked at her when she’s told me what she thinks. Sure, I have disagreed, but somehow we manage to deal with that.

Due to growing up watching this in action, I am pretty much the complete opposite. I like to *think* I am, anyway. But when I look back and think about it, I have not always stood up for myself when I could have. Sometimes there were fights I just could not win. Sometimes the fight was not worth the effort. Sometimes it is easier to just turn away and close your eyes.

Some people have chosen NOT to participate in this topic this week – it’s a busy week for many getting ready to go to Blogher and meet their fellow bloggers. If it was politically correct to do so, I’d say there may be some who chose not to speak because they did not want to face the potential repercussions of speaking their mind on such a topic. I don’t know, but that is a possibility. It’s a shame because I would have liked to read their thoughts.

I don’t have a great many myself.. I’m not feeling particularly inspired today – in fact I am feeling a pull to the DVD player. In there is DVD #3 of season 2 of Desperate Housewives – hello, my name is Snoskred, and I am a Desperate Housewives addict. This show is one of the most politically incorrect that I can recall in recent history – it is actually a dark and twisted type of comedy. People are often surprised to find that out – I know my first impression of the show was that it was just another soap opera, but no! I wonder if maybe that is why people are so drawn to it. They like to see people saying what they really think – in particular I am thinking of the Edie character who never sugar coats things.

My favourite character is Bree. The shot above is taken from an episode where her recently dumped fiancee turns up while she is serving dinner to guests with a karaoke machine. He’s determined to sing her back into his arms. Bree goes outside and tells him to can it, but he won’t. So she goes inside, grabs a shotgun, and shoots the speakers off the top of the van.

Maybe that is another reason why people are drawn to the show – we love to dream of what we *could* do, what we *could* say, if only our hands weren’t tied by this PC nonsense. If only we could be REAL instead of NICE.

I read an article a couple of days ago which I’m going to link to here, it gives an interesting perspective on a new phenomenon soon to shut us up more.. I had it put aside for the wrap up but it suits todays topic. A Weak Me Too Why being the real you on the internet might not be the best of ideas..

I’m off to the shops. I might not be around much tomorrow, we have to go someplace, but I’ll be back with photos before the day is out..

desperate housewives, Hump Day Hmmm

Chocolat – A movie review.

8 Comments Posted on July 19, 2007June 2, 2015 by Snoskred

Any movie with Johnny Depp in it deserves watching over and over, wouldn’t we agree ladies? ;) Combine him with something else we ladies enjoy – chocolate – and this film is a winner even before you unwrap the shrink wrap from the DVD. But this one is special for reasons other than Johnny Depp and many stunning images of chocolate.

My advice to you if you’re going to watch this film – make sure you have some chocolate in the fridge, because this one will make you hungry for it. Lindt is my preference, but to each their own. Now there is a book this movie is based on, however if you have read the book you will be a little unhappy because the movie does not quite resemble the book. Even so, the movie makes up for that, I think. So, let us get into what I love about Chocolat.

1. The way all the characters are connected to each other in some way, the sense of community. It’s difficult to describe but to me there is a real sense that the villagers have all known each other for centuries. A difficult thing to achieve when you’re putting together a movie and in other movies it often feels forced, or not real. Not this one. Delightful.

2. The music. Haunting without taking away from the movie itself. It’s not until after you watch it when you try to sleep that you’ll find it playing in your head. I find it usually lasts for a good couple of days after watching this one. Unusual, for a movie soundtrack.

3. The story. Good VS bad, Church VS Chocolaterie, moral VS immoral, there is so much here to see. A very well put together tale.

4. The costumes. Many of the villagers wear dowdy clothes in dull colors and Vianne the immoral chocolate maker is a vision in bright colors. Even when wearing dark blue, they gave her red shoes. Those who have been reading the blog for a while know that I love to look at shoes, especially high heels. I don’t like to wear them but I like to look at them, and there are times in this movie when Vianne’s shoes distract me from the chocolate.

5. The food. Wow, it all looks so good!

Plus, The entire cast is fantastic – some of my favourites include –

Dame Judi Dench as Armande Voizin – A wonderful performance.

Aurelien Parent Koenig as Luc Clairmont – Armande’s Grandson. What a start to a career to work so closely with Dame Judi Dench. The relationship between them on screen is lovely to watch. A sight for sore eyes in a time of action movies and too many special effects.

Alfred Molina as Comte Paul de Reynaud. Every movie needs a bad guy, and he makes a brilliant one.

Carrie-Anne Moss as Caroline Clairmont. Does she look familiar? Her role in the movie previous to this was in The Matrix. I’m glad she chose this role right after it because such a strong role as Trinity was you run the risk of being “stereotyped”.

Hugh O’Conor as Pere Henri. He is absolutely perfect as the young priest trying to walk a fine line between Church and Chocolaterie.

John Wood as Guillaume Blerot and Leslie Caron as Madame Audel. Again just lovely to watch.

Lena Olin as Josephine Muscat, who makes quite the transformation during the movie.

Victoire Thivisol as Anouk Rocher – a big role for a young girl but she is awesome in it.

Juliette Binoche as Vianne Rocher and she is captivating, curvaceous, delightful and something is going on with her hair that will make you wish you had a big set of hair rollers. Men reading this, you will enjoy watching her I’m sure while we ladies enjoy…..

Johnny Depp as Roux who also has something going on with his hair, but then when doesn’t he? ;)

I can truly say this is one of my favorite films. If you have not seen it, you might want to look out for it on DVD. You won’t regret it.

If you enjoyed this review, you might also enjoy these other reviews.

Pump Up The Volume
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
The Pirate Movie
Chocolat
Shakespeare In Love
Dead Poets Society

Movie Reviews

I think I thought I saw you try..

1 Comment Posted on June 30, 2007 by Snoskred

When I go to sleep at night, the road back from from the place I want to live flashes before me. Big tall trees on either side of the road but it’s like I’m flying so fast, they all blur. And my fear is, something’s gonna jump out in front of me and I’ll hit it. The faster I go, the more things I see threatening to jump out. I know I have to keep going. Moving forward.

I am not a perfect person. I am many things, and germophobe is one of them. You know those people who can’t go out of their house because they’re scared of germs? I’m not there yet, but I can see there from here. Germophobia is different for different people.

For me, I have trouble with –

– door handles
– sponges, teatowels, tablecloths
– food preparation – things have to be clean, clean chopping boards, clean knives, clean utensils
– needing to have clean hands
– people sneezing in my presence
– germ overload when I touch too many dirty things I begin to freak out
– getting to a place where I throw my hands in the air and say “I can’t deal with this” (such a place might be called germ overload)

I am in the process of making positive changes in many areas in my life, and today I have taken a big step towards a goal I set myself recently, which is having a cleaner house. You see for me, it is easier to live with dusty surfaces than to clean them. Cleaning becomes a big deal because if I am going to do it, I want to do it 100% all the time but I don’t have the energy to do this. An Olympic athlete does not have the energy to make things as clean as I would like them.

I have recently decided this all or nothing approach is a really bad idea. ;) Spending 8 hours cleaning one bathroom is really not for me and in the past, it has been easier for me to just throw my hands in the air and say “I can’t face cleaning it” than to do a “lesser” job.

Carl Jung said – “We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”

I accept that I have a problem with cleaning. I accept that I am a germophobe. I accept that it is better for things to be somewhat clean than absolutely spotless or very unclean.

The serenity prayer says “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.

I cannot magically snap my fingers and make myself a non-germophobe. I have to take baby steps towards making things better, and I have the courage and will to do this. I can create positive change. I cannot solve all the problems in the world, but this I can work on.

So recently I accepted that wiping things down with an anti-bacterial cloth once a week was a good idea and a positive change that I could make that would help me get to a place where I wasn’t throwing my hands in the air, unable to act. Over the past couple of weeks I have spent some time cleaning things obsessively.

3 days to do my bookshelves, come on you guys, that is NOT normal, it is not like I have an entire library here, there’s two book shelves with a total of 24 alcoves in them. Not only did I clean the shelves, I cleaned each book, each ornament on the shelves, all the picture frames, anything nearby. Obsessively. They are now spotless, and this means I can just wipe the shelves over, wipe the books which are getting dusty. If I do that once a week, I’ll feel a lot better.

Today I tackled the difficult subject of the bathrooms. I have been putting it off. The other day the other half said to me that he had no idea how someone who claimed to be a germophobe could live with such a bathroom situation. They were filthy. I said this germophobe could not live with having to clean these bathrooms. Whoever designed them is a real idiot. There are many spots for germs to hide. To clean the vanity tops usually takes me 2 hours alone and it is backbreaking because of the height of the darned things. They were designed for very short people.

That’s not even getting into cleaning the toilets. There’s not enough anti-bacterial hand wash in the world for me to cope with that. So I’d rather put it off, and put it off, and keep putting it off until I can’t take anymore.

When one does put in the hard yards and does the work, one feels a real sense of accomplishment. Now, I intend a quick wipe over once a week, and then I won’t have to do this evil backbreaking hours of work chore because it won’t get that bad. The trouble is having stuff on top of the vanity means you have to move all that stuff when you want to clean it. That’s what was stopping me from cleaning the bookshelves for so long. Too much stuff in the way which I’d have to move, and clean. I’m thinking a box with a lid would be a lot easier.

I just went into the bathroom before to wash my hands, and took great pleasure in the clean surfaces. I have to remember that when I start to think I can’t reach this goal. I can reach it. I know I can. And who put can’t in my vocabulary? I don’t like that word. Will not, sure. May not, fine. Do not, okie dokie. Can not – it has to be one of the previous three.

I’m so tired. I’ve been up since 7:30am and most of the afternoon was spent in a cleaning frenzy. I’m going to sleep for hours. ;) Tomorrow it’s weekly wrap up time.

germophobe, life lessons, music

Drive it like you stole it..

Leave a comment Posted on June 29, 2007 by Snoskred

I got a phone call about 2:30pm. I was actually in the middle of a West Wing episode at the time. The caller said “10 Minutes” and I hung up the phone and raced off to get ready because I knew what that meant. 10 minutes later, my Dad pulled into the driveway for the last time in his old car. Well, not like old, it was only 3 years old. But today was the day it was going back to the dealer, never to be “ours” again.

During the time he had it I had only driven it twice and both times broke speed limits but fortunately for me did not get caught. It was a Ford XR8, and it had the power. That’s why I didn’t drive it more often, because it could have tempted me into being a very bad individual while driving on the back roads. Or any road, really.

Saying goodbye to a car is not an easy thing. The Other Half and I have recently talked about the possibility of saying goodbye to our car, and that car has been many places with us. The side mirror is a very good friend of mine. We’ve only driven 50,000kms in it, over three years, but when I close my eyes I can see images of many travels from the perspective of looking out my side mirror. I feel like I’d want to keep that part of the car. I know that sounds utterly insane. ;)

However, saying hello to a new car is a very easy thing. This new car is *beautiful*. It truly is a work of art. It’s sitting in Dad’s garage as I type this. It is very low to the ground, and the car dealer said to us that it’s inevitable that the front of the body kit will scrape and get cracked. The old one on the XR8 did. He’s got a guy who fixes it easily if you want it fixed, but he figures it’s a fact of life, live with it.

That is the one thing holding me back from saying to the other half yes, let’s get the new car. The person I was when we first got our car wasn’t the nicest of people. I get pretty angry over anyone careless enough to even look at it the wrong way, let alone go near enough to it to scratch it. When they really damaged our side door as I wrote about here (my side door, so each time I get in the car I am reminded) the more I think about it, the more I realize I probably would have really damaged that person who left the dent in my door if I had turned up when they were doing it. It still manages to fill me with such a rage. I’m not sure I’m meant to be such an angry person.

In other news, today is the first day of the school holidays, and please can everyone pray for rain for the next 2 weeks so those people across the road won’t interrupt my peace. This afternoon the kids across the road started up with a soccer ball on the road in front of my house and I have just realized, it’s two weeks of school holidays with them constantly out there making noise, and I’m still stuck in this house. I had hoped we would have moved by now.

The idea of watching one West Wing each day was dead in the water on day one, as the first episode meant the second had to be watched, and the second definitely meant the third had to be watched. I was in the middle of Episode 3, and I’m going to finish it now, and then off to bed. ;)

cars, moving on, The West Wing

The spiderman is always hungry..

Leave a comment Posted on June 28, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

The kitties have killed a few spiders over the last couple of days. It’s been raining a lot and these spiders, which I call lawn spiders because they live in the lawn currently can’t live in the lawn due to its being flooded. It’s a bit like a swimming pool in our backyard. The spiders aren’t poisonous but they are freaky and they jump around a lot. The little kitty likes to trap them under her paw.

Yesterday morning we got up early and went to get the kitty kibble. It’s the older cat who I’m not about to deny food to because she was a bit stick thin back in summer and ever since then I have been tempting her with bacon and various other treats. Her favorite is roast chicken skin. If we go shopping on a Wednesday night we usually bring home a hot roast chicken because the supermarket sells them cheap. Now, if the big kitty sees shopping bags she assumes there’s going to be a chicken and she gets all excited. You can’t just take the skin off the chicken and put it in a bowl, she wants to be hand fed a little piece at a time. Yep, she has us trained.

Over the past week or so I’ve watched all of season 5 of the West Wing in preparation for season 6. Sephy is also up to season 6 now and we’re going to watch it together and blog about it on a testing blog we made a while back. It’ll be cool to be able to discuss the episodes having both seen them fresh, for the first time. ;)

Today we did a bit of cooking and reorganized the kitchen, all to the sounds of The Cure, who are touring Australia soon. I’m tempted to go see them.

kitties, music, The West Wing

I may have created a monster..

4 Comments Posted on June 26, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

The Other Half is truly one of the funniest men I know. Funny is a major point on my list of things a man must be in order for me to be attracted.. Some women would be attracted to this –

or maybe something like this –

but me, I don’t mind if a man looks like this –

or even this –

as long as he can make me laugh.

The guy in the above “tough love” picture actually looks a little like my other half. ;) and thankfully the other half does not read this blog. At least he tells me he does not.. ;) He knows I think that guy looks like him – it’s actually Mick Molloy who is a comedian here in Australia, and that picture was on a radio station poster which was all over the place a while back.

Like I say, the other half was already a very funny guy, but one year in the days before you could buy it on DVD the cable tv channel here ran a marathon of Seinfeld episodes, in order. I taped the whole thing. The marathon lasted four days. I’d never really watched Seinfeld much other than caught the odd episode, but when you watch it IN ORDER it is a lot funnier than the way a lot of the TV shows played it.

The reason I taped it was the Other Half and I often could not agree on what to watch while we eat dinner. Dinner time was one of the rare times we actually watched TV, and we could sit there and argue about what we should watch until dinner went cold. Movies were too long. We didn’t have DVD’s back then. Often there would be nothing decent on the TV at dinner time. He didn’t mind Seinfeld, I was willing to give it a try, and the episodes lasted for 22 minutes, just perfect for eating dinner. We became real fans of the show, and it somehow made the other half even more funny than he’d been previously. He can take any topic and go all Jerry about it.

I can’t really give you any examples of his funniness here, because when I write them down they don’t seem so funny. Let me simply say that not one day goes by where The Other Half does not have me laughing so hard I have to sit down before I fall down.

funny, The Other Half

Blogrolling and Commercial Promotion

8 Comments Posted on June 18, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

The first blog post I read on opening my google reader was Weekend: Blogistan by one of my favourite bloggers, Chani from Thailand Gal. While I adore her and her writings, on many topics we see very differently and this is one of them. It really got me thinking, especially some of the comments and her responses to them. So let me get into what I think, in the hope it may suggest other ways of thinking about these things.. Yeah, this one will be long, sorry about that, and I really would like to hear your thoughts and comments on it. Don’t forget there’s a weekly wrap up post below this one too. :)

Blogrolls.

I give out link love like there’s no tomorrow. I do it for various reasons –

– Blogs I read via my google reader – these are the blogs I am reading and enjoying. If I like them, and you like my blog, chances are you may enjoy them. But my tastes are wide and varied, and therefore you might find yourself surprised or even absolutely dislike what you find there. Once every 6-12 months I will go through this list and I may remove blogs I am no longer reading, blogs that have moved without beating my head up about the fact that they have a new location (tip, if you move blogs, post at your old blog at least once a week to let people know you have moved with a link to the new blog, so your feed-reading people can follow you), blogs that I’m not feeling the connection with anymore.

It is not done to offend anyone, it is not done so people link back to me (if they do, that is really lovely and much appreciated) and it is done to let people know I am reading them and that I love and appreciate their work. I believe it is the very least I can do in return for the enjoyment I get out of their blogging. A link in my sidebar is good for their Technorati ranking, their Google pagerank, and various other things.

– The links list to both the Australian and the US blog communities.Other people’s blogrolls –

– I understand that these things are not easily updated all the time. Most of the time I have all day every day to work on my blog. Not everyone has that.
– If you link to me, that is lovely and much appreciated but if I don’t know about it I can’t link to you in return. I always post a comment on a blog to let people know I am linking to them.
– If you link to me and you’re not in my sidebar, I recommend you let me know because I am happy to check out your blog. Comment on this post to mention you’d like me to check out your blog. I will as soon as I have the spare time, and if I like it, I’ll link to you.
– I appreciate someone asking to do a link exchange, and I will usually respect that by giving you a link back. If you get removed from my links bar at some later time, I do apologise, but it does mean I am no longer reading your blog. I read a lot of blogs, from time to time I have to re-evaluate my choices, and if you didn’t catch me with your content, if there was no connection, I’m sorry. It’s me, not you. ;)

Commercial Promotion

And now we get to the slightly more thorny topic. Let’s face a few facts up front.

1. I do not earn any money. I do not work, I have not applied for unemployment though I would be eligible for it, I do not want to receive it at this time. We live on The Other Half’s income. Though it is reasonable and enough to provide us with most everything we need, it also is nice to have my own money from time to time to buy little treats for me.

2. If I were to promote a product or website here on my blog, it would not be something I don’t already use and love. And I have given blatant free advertising to things that I use and love, places I shop, websites I adore, places I like to go and visit, etc, before here on the blog. So if someone wants to pay me to do it, that’s fine by me.

Pay per post –

I did recently sign up for pay per post, and was a bit disappointed to find that one product I do already love and use and a product I would love to be able to tell you guys about because I really feel it would help you to increase your internet security was paying people PLENTY of money to blog about them – we’re talking in the hundreds here just for one post. However they wanted people with a google pagerank of 6 and mine is only 4, so I could not earn anything for blogging about it. So for the time being, I’ve settled just for putting a “you can hire me” thing on the sidebar, and then if someone wants to hire me I’d only agree if it is something I really do love and use – or, if it were something new that I felt I would love and use.

Also, I have my own little rule (which as yet I’ve not had to implement) that if I wrote a sponsored post, I would immediately follow it up with some not sponsored content. This gives people a chance to skip the sponsored post if they feel like it.

My position on bloggers and commercial promotion.

So I guess my major bone to pick with Chani’s post was the part where she said commercial promotion on your blog means you get removed from her blogroll. I think commercial promotion can be done tastefully and without offending anyone, and as long as the blogger involved tells you that they’re being paid for that post. Money won’t buy my good opinion. I have to already have the good opinion first. If a company said to me – try our product, and if you like it we’ll pay you to blog about it – and I did like it so much that I intended to use it again, I’d be happy to blog about it.

If any of the companies which I use products from already came to me and asked me to promote their product here on the blog, well what’s wrong with that? I already use their stuff, I already love it, I was probably going to mention it at some point anyway (and I do have ideas for products I can’t live without blogs floating around already) and if I like it, chances are my readers might like it just as much as I do.

Just stop for one moment and think about this. You wash your hair, right? (One hopes so!)What if the company who manufacture your shampoo offered $10US for you to blog about their product. Would that tempt you, if you really loved their product, the feel of it, the smell of it, how clean your hair felt after washing it? What about $50US? What about $100US? What if they said a year’s free product? You’re already using it. What’s wrong with saying I love this, and the company is paying me money to tell you I love this?

Not to mention, it is actually good for me to tell people about things I love, because if I do that then maybe some of these companies will STOP TAKING PRODUCTS OFF THE SHELVES WHICH I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT. I have here on my desk right now an empty McCormick pepper steak seasoning bottle because I am intending to write them an email which says why can’t I find this on the shelves anymore? I love this product and so does the rest of my family, we’ve tried the other brands on the market and they don’t taste as good, so please bring it back!

As time goes on, I find I am writing more and more emails to companies. They fall into two categories – why can’t I find your product, can you tell me where I can get some more of it – and I love your product, it is fantastic. I feel it is important to let companies know when they’re doing something well. They probably get plenty of complaints, and there’s not enough people out there giving compliments. I like to take the time to give a compliment if I can.

I’ve already promoted plenty of stuff here on my blog for free. For example – Pitango Soup – Lean Cuisine – Rushfaster and their brilliant website – of course Ikea there’s been many posts about, and that is not even mentioning the movies I’ve written about, the blogs I’ve recommended, books I’ve written about, TV programs, music I love, DVD’s, I could keep going but I think you get my point.

Consider a-ha and Morten Harket, how many times have I posted their songs here and written about them? Why do I do it? Because I love their work, and I think people who enjoy my blog would love it too – and it’s not something you’re going to find on the (US) charts – too much (c)rap and not enough substance there these days. I hope that me talking about it here might inspire people to purchase their music, I won’t lie to you about that. I’m not making any money out of it, I’m just a fan.

In this world today, good service and good products and good books and good movies and good music really are not easy to find, especially if they’re not mainstream or promoted everywhere. If a good friend of mine says to me – wow, this is fantastic, you have to (see, hear, taste) it, I’m likely to do exactly that. I consider my fellow bloggers good friends of mine, and if they love a book or a product or a movie or some music, I want to know about it. :)

Shopping in an ocean of products.

I went into Borders while in the city, on the weekend. We spent probably two hours there. As I was browsing the shelves, I was trying to recall the titles of books which my fellow bloggers had mentioned they liked, and I failed miserably. I could only remember one title which someone had not liked (yes, it was The White Masai), so I wasn’t about to buy that one.

There were SO many books there, millions to choose from. I felt like I was drowning in an ocean of not knowing anything about these authors and whether I would like them. It was like a glittering cave of pretty book covers with no idea of what was behind them. Like the old Doug Antony Allstars joke along the lines of – do not judge a book by its cover, read the entire thing in the bookshop first and then decide if you wish to purchase it.

Books aren’t cheap, especially not at Borders. As more time went by, I began to feel under pressure to choose. I went right through the authors from A to Z and nothing jumped out and grabbed me, except books I already had, and books I remembered reading in English class many years ago. I already have a lot of the classics – I must finish that Library Thing list in my sidebar one day, it does not represent anything like the amount of books I own.

You know what I ended up buying? Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, a book I remember enjoying from high school and the only book from the A to Z section which probably had a hundred thousand books to choose from. My Life So Far by Jane Fonda – I saw her on The Actor’s Studio recently where they talked a fair bit about this book she’d written and all of a sudden there it was in front of me (not hidden on the shelves, in a book stand) so I grabbed it. Failure Is Not An Option by Gene Kranz – I mentioned already that I’ve seen him interviewed and really adore him. He still can’t talk about Apollo 13 without getting emotional, you can see just how much it meant to him to get those guys home. I loved the Apollo 13 book and I knew I’d love his book too, but I had no idea it existed and I found it quite by accident while looking for books on Aviation.

I had more money to spend, I could have bought several more books, but I didn’t because I didn’t KNOW what was good in an ocean of many options. I’ve been burned before, you know? If I’d had time to prepare for going there, I’d have put together a list. I have a DVD list, which I take everywhere with me, and if I see anything on it for less than $10AUD, I usually pick it up. I’m now starting a book list, and if a fellow blogger gives a book a good review and it sounds like something I’d like, I’m writing it down so I can check it out in the store.

So I guess, I feel like bloggers promoting things – for the right reasons – is something I really want to see more of. Yes, I have seen blogs which blatantly post a sh*tload of pay per post things and you can tell they have never had anything to do with the product they speak of. It always turns me off – however if they have good content as well, it’s not going to put me off entirely. I’ve seen blogs where the content was great, then they got into pay per post and now won’t write anything other than paid posts, and yes I agree that sucks and I wouldn’t keep reading that kind of blog.

The reasons above is one reason why I have not done any paid posts yet – there’s nothing there at the moment which I use and love. There’s one opportunity there at the moment that appeals to me that is trying to get the word out about a non-profit service and you know what, I think that is truly a worthwhile thing to post about. I post here about scams and internet security and keeping yourself safe on the net. I’ve posted before about Lifeline and depression because these are things that have happened to me and Lifeline helped me and maybe those posts helped someone to get help, you know? If non-profits and legitimate charities can use pay per post to get the word out about things they do and services they offer, that is brilliant in my opinion. If it can benefit bloggers too, that is surely a good thing.

Make money from your blog.

There are plenty of blogs out there promoting make money from your blog type of things, many of them are in the Australian and US blog communities. I have mixed feelings about them. Some of the things they talk about, some of the tips they give are actually excellent for blogging in general – not necessarily for making money out of your blog. I do want to improve my writing and my blog, and I am happy to read peoples tips and ideas.

There are some blogs out there where stay-at-home Mom’s are trying to make enough to continue staying at home with their kids. Some of those blogs are brilliant and fantastic and I love them. Some of those blogs I find incredibly annoying but I still have to stand up and applaud the reasons they are trying to do it – if my Mom had this option years ago, she might have been able to be at home more with us. I’m one of a generation of kids who let themselves into the house after getting home from school.

I guess the bottom line is, I’m willing to overlook a few commercial posts from time to time as long as

– I believe the blogger is telling the truth and not just saying things in order to earn money
– The blog has enough content which is not sponsored and that content makes me love the blogger enough to keep reading
– The blogger isn’t in your face about it, they follow up a sponsored post with genuine unpaid content
– The blogger also has content which tells about things they love and use which is NOT paid for, so it does fit in with their blogging in general

As far as ads in the sidebar etc –

– they are not too overwhelming
– they do not flash, or make noises when I move my mouse over them
– we all work hard on our blogs and deserve to earn some money from them, but we also must respect our readers and not overwhelm them with commercial content. There’s such a thing as too much.

For me, it’s not a black or white thing.

I can’t say – if you post commercial content I’m removing you from my blogroll. I’m not in a position to judge other people on whether they are tempted into making a bit of money from their blog. In fact I’m in a position to *applaud* people if they do it in a way which respects their readers. The money is out there for the taking and I’d much rather see it go to a blogger I love and respect who needs the money than someone just doing it for the cash.

Your blog is a place for you. It is where you can express your thoughts and opinions about things you believe in, things you love, things you want to let others know about. I’m along for the ride and I’m going to be there for the good times as well as the bad, the good posts as well as the not so good ones, the paid posts as well as the unpaid ones. I’m a pretty loyal person once you’ve won my heart. If you can make money out of your blog, good on you. Just don’t forget that your readers will leave if they find it offensive, or too much. I’m thinking one pay per post per week is probably enough for most readers to overlook. If you start posting three a day and no worthwhile content in between, eat my dust cos I’m outa there.. ;)

If you never comment on a post of mine but you’ve managed to make it this far, please drop by and leave your thoughts in the comments. I really want to know what other people think about this.

a-ha, blogging tips, blogrolls, Morten Harket

Weekly Wrap Up 18/06/07

1 Comment Posted on June 18, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

Welcome back to me! ;) Very relieved to be back at home, I won’t lie to ya’all. It was nice to go away but it is even nicer to return to one’s waterbed and kitties. ;)

A HUGE thank you to Sephy for helping me out here on the blog and posting the pics I emailed to him from my mobile phone which have been coming to you as a surprise over the weekend.

I have not yet logged into my google reader but I am looking forward to going in and catching up with what everyone has been up to.

So, the week in review. I talked about how things are different in the country, I had some adventures in hair dying and a lovely beach walk with photos for ya’all. One really important post I’d like to draw your attention to, written by Sephy. It’s over on his blog and it is regarding the Assassination scam. These scammers do a lot of really terrible things but this is by far the worst type of scam out there and the most scary for anyone who receives it. Thanks to Sephy posting it, a lot of people have found his blog and know it’s just the scammers trying to get money out of people they know nothing about and there’s no assassination teams watching them. It’s a huge relief for those people who received the email.

If any bloggers reading this could do us a favour and help us educate more people on these scams by linking to that post and perhaps also to my internet safety post part six which talks about those scams, that would be fantastic. In case you missed it, here’s links to Internet safety part one – two – three – four – five – six. I’m going to put this series at the top of the right sidebar for a little bit, to make it easier for people to find.

Funny search terms this week –
headache, foggy memo
email shenanigans
plane panti hose
hairy boys
animals diecan’t turn over
home hair dying green
jammed acrylic nail and lifted my real nail
why does sunscreen make acrylic nails sticky? (does it? I didn’t know this)
scary pictures of sharks and people (I know where to find this but it scared me so much I’m not telling)
rob lowe naked (yeah, I wish I knew where to find that too!)

And a lot of Morten Harket queries.. ;) Morten Harket was the number one search term this week.
is morten harket gay? (You’d have to ask him, I’m voting no but he does wear a lot of leather so I can understand the general confusion)
is morten harket married? (He was, yes)
morten harket and his wife
morten harket naked pics (sorry, I don’t have any, if you find them let ME know!)
how tall is morten harket

We’re still averaging 700 unique visitors a week here – that doesn’t count return visits during the week. I am still in the middle of the blogging chicks commenting challenge but didn’t get too much done last week thanks to the trip, so hopefully this week I’ll get busy. :)

So things are back to normal with me returning home, and you can look forward to some quality blogging this week as well as lovely photos of Ikea purchases and the Sydney Harbor Bridge at night. I’m hoping to write another blog about differences between the country and city this week, as well as something about vertigo and pilots. No, that won’t be as boring as it sounds. ;)

Internet Safety, Morten Harket, weekly wrap up

Men I love to watch – Morten Harket

5 Comments Posted on June 7, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

When I was a little girl music video was something special. Mum would do her housework on Saturday mornings with all TV’s in the house playing the music video shows really loudly. 1984 had been the year of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album and he was the big thing in music video, spending more money than ever before on creating huge epics which were more like a short movie than a music video.

In 1985, I was 10 years old. I really didn’t pay too much attention to boys at that young age, I was more interested in roller skating, books, and playing with the kids in the neighborhood. But one morning, I sat there and watched the music videos and there was a new one. It was called “Take On Me” and it was by a Norwegian band called a-ha that I had never heard of. For those who would like to take a trip down memory lane – the video is here on you tube. And if you would like to know more of the story behind the video clip, watch this story on you tube – I had no idea the girl in the video went on to be Morten’s first serious girlfriend. Aww, how cute!

Their music video was unique, very different, part animation, part real images. I believe it was one of the best videos ever made and certainly one of the most memorable. And one simple image right at the end of the video was all it took to wake up the “boys are cute” part of my brain. It was this one.

Yes, he is apparently quite sweaty having just broken out of being a cartoon – those of you who know the video know what I mean. But wow, isn’t he cute. I became an instant a-ha fan, and my room became a shrine to these three boys from Norway but in particular Morten. I had Hunting High and Low on cassette tape (remember cassette tapes? I had forgotten how to spell them!) and I listened to it over and over.

Hunting High and Low was one of my favourite songs – and they made a great video clip to go with it, but I think out of all the songs on the album Manhattan Skyline was my favourite. Here’s the original film clip of Manhattan Skyline which was yet another in a line of new and interesting video techniques – this one involved join the dots drawings and newspapers.

So then, they kind of disappeared. Other musicians took over the shrine on my bedroom walls. Life went on. Until one day I was on the internet and I did a search for a-ha, and found out that unknown to me they’d gone on to have a huge career in their home country of Norway and produced some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. None of this music could be purchased here in Australia, but I ordered everything I possibly could find on the internet and in the long 6-8 week wait for it to get here, I downloaded every thing I could find, every live recording, every track I could get my hands on. I also got a copy of Hunting High and Low (after hunting high and low for it, I found it instore at JB Hifi but checking their website they don’t seem to have it there.)

So what is Morten like these days? Still gorgeous? Tick. Married? He was, and has three children with his (now ex-) wife. Taken? Yes, he has a girlfriend. Still with a-ha? Yes, and they have an official website.

An a-ha tribute video – there’s some gorgeous pics in here and it’s hard to find any on the net sadly – I wish there were, I’d have put a bucketload on here.

If you’re in Australia and you would like to purchase some of a-ha’s more recent work it is really not so easy. Their latest album “Analogue” can be bought by special order via JB Hifi. Headlines and Deadlines, the hits of a-ha is available at Ezydvd.

Other than that, it’s overseas websites which will ship items here for the most part. Believe me, it is worth the wait. My favourite and most treasured a-ha item is a copy of Homecoming – a-ha live at Vallhall. You can find quite a lot of a-ha clips, videos and interviews on you tube. a-ha on Wikipedia has a lot of nice info including quotes from other artists about Morten.

My favourite of their albums would be very hard to pick. Analogue has really grown on me lately. When I first got my copy of it after waiting many weeks for it to arrive, I was actually a little disappointed because it was so different to Minor Earth Major Sky and Lifelines. The more I listen to it, the more I love it. My current favourite is Holy Ground, and here is a beautiful version of it. Oddly enough involving Orlando Bloom and the movie Troy? with clips of a-ha performing this live at the biggest free concert at Frognerparken in Oslo

So, not only is Morten Harket gorgeous to look at, but he can sing like an angel and is an extremely talented man. I hope if you were not aware of him before, that this post has introduced you to his beautiful music. Later this year A-ha will tour Norway, Germany and Russia. I hope one day I might get to see them live, it is a dream of mine.

I’m sure I haven’t said everything I wanted to say and I know I haven’t put all the clips I wanted to put here or else this post would go on almost as long as my sidebar, but that is a little taste of why I adore Morten. :) So I will now hit publish and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

If you enjoyed this post, you might like some of the other Men I love to watch posts. Rob Lowe – Christian Slater – And the first ever Women we love to watch post here on the blog – Beyonce – more to come over the next few weeks.

a-ha, Morten Harket, music

Morten Harket – the voice of an angel.

Leave a comment Posted on June 7, 2007January 13, 2015 by Snoskred

In preparation for a “Men we love to watch” post later today, here is my favourite a-ha song of all time. I’d say 99% of people reading this will never have heard this song before, so click play and turn it up, then close your eyes. You won’t miss any lovely Morten photos because the video is just cartoons but it is the only version of this song I can find on you-tube. Enjoy.

Drop back a little later for Morten in pictures. ;)

a-ha, music