I appreciate her enthusiasm, and her fake beauty pageant, smile, but, after just witnessing a portion of Condoleezza Rice’s ‘on the record’ interview, I must say, she is so f’in behind the times.

And I paraphrase:

“I love this country. People respect this country for what we stand for. They may not always like our policies, but they respect our ideals… yada, yada, yada.”

They do? I try to keep up on foreign media, and the U.S. isn’t exactly the class president of the world’s high school. Quit trying to be something you’re not. Grab your lunch tray and sit your ass at the losers’ table.

You know, for a lot of people finding a mate is as simple as heading out to a local bar or club and meeting someone else that has headed out to the same place. It seems that a lot of people look to a club or a bar when then are looking for romance or looking for a mate. Of course, what do people do that do not go to those types of places? Well, they can do what people do that do go to those types of places but are not having any luck finding a suitable mate. And that is checking out those online dating sites. There are a lot of online dating sites out there where you can meet other single people. Of course, the interesting thing about them is that for they most part you have to pay a fee in order to be able to sign up for their services. And who wants to do that? Especially in this economy. That is why you need to know about True.com. You see, with True you can actually go to their site and search for free. Seriously. If you want to sign up for True then you can and it will not cost you a cent as it is totally free to sign up. All you have to do is sign up and then you can start that search for your soulmate on True. So, what are you waiting for? That perfect person could be out there just waiting for you. So be sure to head on over to the site today and get started on that totally free search on the site now!

My greenery is dying. It’s just one little Ivy. He’s being watered. He’s getting sunlight. He’s getting good, meaninful conversation. And yet, he’s getting little dead leaves all over and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m thinking about taking him down to the pool for a swim and getting him a massage.

Sensei Riley LaShea, plant killer.

Have you ever been say sitting at work and wishing that you could work some mind control mojo over on the boss to make things go the way that you want them to go. Well, according to the Underground Hypnosis website you can do just that by learning a bit about Hypnosis and Mind Control, conveniently by making a purchase from the Underground Hypnosis web site. In fact, the Underground Hypnosis web site claims to unlock the mysteries of the vast and varying innovative hypnosis and mind control techniques that are out there just beyond your reach. It asks you to imagine what you could do with such powers. Would you want to use them for things like getting seated as soon as you walk into a restaurant without having to wait? Or how about getting what you want when you call a customer complaint line? I would like to use some mind control mojo on bad drivers. You know, the ones that get in the fast lane and go super slow. And you know, the things that they are teaching through Underground Hypnosis is more than just card tricks. It is more about actual interaction with dialogue and such. So, if you are interested in unlocking the mysterious hypnosis secrets of the Triad, why not head on over to the Underground Hypnosis site today to see what the fuss is all about. And then go ahead and get the info that you are looking for on hypnosis today.

I was going to do a brief history lesson about the stock market crash of ‘29. Considering the state of things, I thought it might be a useful review. But we’ll save that for later.

Now it seems our amazingly on top of things U.S. government has decided to help the banking industry by buying stocks in banks. Isn’t that too awesome of them? At a time when bank stocks are low, because all stocks are low, the government buys some of it up. Don’t worry. I’m sure they have every intention of giving profits back to the people through a wide array of social programs for the greater good.

And there is nothing that brings more peace of mind than knowing that your government controls your money. I feel safer already.

Have you been getting a little bit worried about the economy? Does the current state of the economy have you worried about your finances and what not then why not look into some ways to make a little bit of extra money. You can even Make money from home and it just might not be as hard as you think! In fact, there is a little something that is called eSuccess2U that you can check out that can help you out when it comes to making some money all from the comfort of your own home. And you will see that it is super easy and it is done using a proprietary email marketing system. If you are interested then all you need to do is to click on the link above and go on and sign up for a totally free trial. When you sign up for the free trial you will have access to the email marketing software that is super easy to use, there is also a list of 5000 unique email addresses for you to use, there is an automatic scheduler and much much more. So why not sign up for that free trial and check it out today. And really, email marketing is something that is easy to do and delivers high returns for the amount that you have put into it. I really like that this comes with the pro templates that ready to use just like that. So you can get started right away on your email marketing campaign to make that extra cash. So be sure to head on over to the site and get all of the info and sign up for your free trial today!

Five words: panache / vagabond / douche / Omniety / monkey
Location: church
Prop: rubber chicken
Theme: ‘making lemons out of lemonade’
Read the Rules
(I’d also like to throw out that I watched Lost Boys: The Tribe tonight, which clearly had an influence. And would have been so much better if both of the Coreys could have been in it.)

Clocked in at : 1 hour, 20 minutes

Writing Challenge #1

Living the vagabond lifestyle can be a million shades of coolness. For Turk Fitzgerald and Bam Stone, this was kind of a motto. They weren’t intelligent or literate enough to come up with anything more lyrical. They were, however, practically scholars in life experience. They had been on hand for more of the world’s big events than most people even knew had taken place in their lifetime, which, they knew very well, made them way more awesome than other losers.

But living rough and tumble from one place to the next, and never quite knowing where they might roll out of bed in the morning, had a tendency to bring Turk and Bam a fair amount of trouble. They liked meeting people, made a habit of it. Sometimes the people they met weren’t the nicest people, and sometimes the people they met weren’t the peoplest of people.

When they wondered down by the docks forty-five minutes before to crash the badass riverside party to which the hosts had neglected to invite them, it took only a half a dozen fang sightings and one or two nearly drained civilians to enlighten them to the fact that this leather jacket sporting, sunglasses at night wearing posse wasn’t just the average, everyday hellraisers they’d first taken them to be. They were, in fact, a band of the undead.

While it was somewhat embarrassing to make the same error over again, the fact that they had made the mistake once before of following a group of vamps to their favorite feeding spot, at least meant they were prepared.

Sporting the garlic rope necklaces that kept their pursuers at an agreeable distance, Turk and Bam took off at what could be considered a sprint for two people who drank themselves into a drunken stupor nightly and consumed more Ganja weekly than Bob Dylan put into all his Grammy-winning songs put together. Sure, vampires had a certain panache, but it didn’t mean that either of them were ready to trade their humanity for immortality and stylin’ threads.

Moonlight shown down without obstruction on the French countryside. In different circumstances, it might have been lovely. Instead, it was kind of like a football field where the goal kept getting further and further away.

A less optimistic duo might have considered the possibility that there was no goal. That there were no buildings to come to, no humans around to help, that there was nothing but wide open field for kilometers upon kilometers, and they would have to continue running until the sun came up and scared their nocturnal friends back into hiding.

But, in all their travels, Turk and Ben found that Omniety, be it a god, destiny, or simply the universe as an all-seeing whole, had always brought to them protection, so when they crested a knoll and saw the little country church ahead, glowing with warm light, they smiled with glee and raced toward it.

After a round of desperate knocking, the door opened to a diminutive minister.

“Can we come in?” they shouted in frantic unison.

“All are welcome here,” the minister nodded.

Turk and Bam rushed in, turning around and slamming the door closed, the heavy wooden plank falling back across the door to lock it. When the minister looked nervously at them, Turk clapped him on the shoulder.

“No problem, man,” he said. “We’re cool.”

The minister timidly nodded, leading them out of the vestibule and into the church.

“I hope you won’t be too put out,” he warned them. “We’re having a lock in. All the virgin maidens of the village have gathered for prayer and meditation.”

The words didn’t register right away, but the bouncy girl parts did. Thirty virgin maidens, dressed in their skimpy best, engaged in a room-wide pillow fight, where tickling and giggling were fair modes of attack.

“I’ll just leave you for a moment,” the minister said, going off to check on something.

Turk and Bam floated through the flying feathers, the room moving in slow motion, the way that all the best porn directors would edit it.

“Bonjour hotties,” Bam greeted them in a voice not one of them recognized as being his horny come on tone.

“Bonjour,” thirty breathless female voices returned in a chorus.

And this is why Turk and Bam just kept moving through life. When there were thirty scantily clad young virgins hanging on their every word, it was easy to forget about the bad stuff, like cavities and blood-thirsty vampires.

“During our month in Paris,” Turk bragged in his broken French. “I found a wild monkey and made him my pet. I called him Popeye.”

At least that’s what he believed he told them. The tittering that followed his declaration was actually due to the virgins hearing, “In Paris, I had rabid monkey sex and pretended my partners were Popeye.”

“I will not be intimate with a man until I marry,” a virgin replied.

Turk and Bam shared a wide grin and satisfied nod when they translated between the two of them, “I do this totally naughty thing with poultry.”

It was an honest mistake. In her arms, the girl held a rubber chicken she hadn’t put down since they came in, and neither of them had the capacity to put two and two together and get total insanity.

Such a perfect save, and a gentle landing, Turk and Bam had forgotten why they had come to the church in the first place. Even the brutal knocking didn’t catch their attention until too late. Hearing the wood plank being moved and the heavy door sliding open, Turk and Bam jumped up from their maiden pile, rushing for the vestibule just in time to hear a gruff voice say –

“Invite me in.”

And the minister, apparently denser than them, respond –

“All are welcome here.”

“You douche!”

Those were Bam Stone’s last words, nicely summing up his and Turk Fitzgerald’s last great adventure.

But they shall live on forever in the legend of the ‘Coven of the Thirty Virgins’.

In an effort to get the creativity flowing, and because I was asked to produce a short story, I decided to engage in a writing challenge. To keep my juices really churning, I would like to do it as a weekly thing. Unlike everything else I write,  there will be no second guessing and no worries. If it stops being fun, I’ll have to stop doing it. I need to write one thing each week that isn’t a source of stress!

The Rules:

No rewrites.

No edits.

No withholding. (If I write it, I have to post it.)

I get an hour and a half. If I’m not done, I have to stop mid-sentence. (which of course would make it open to interpretation, kind of like a David Lynch movie)

What I’m given:

Five words (and I have to use them all)

One location

One prop (it must be used as a prop, not just mentioned)

A theme

I am hoping some of you kind people might be willing to help me out with these categories as needed.

Stay tuned. The first challenge will be posted momentarily.

TITLE: A Conversation with Jill About a Hypothetical Person Who May or May Not Exist
PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

“Hey Jill. ‘Sup? You havin’ a good mornin’?” Lindsay swept through Jill’s open office door, plopping herself down in one of the faux leather chairs with a flourish.

“It hasn’t been a bad morning,” Jill answered slowly, eyeing the paper cup of caffeinated sugar teetering in Lindsay’s unsteady hand. “How many of those have you had today?”

“Three. Double shots,” Lindsay divulged, downing a quarter of the cup in one swallow, and emerging with a big smile.

“Wow,” Jill uttered. “Do you have a hangover or something?”

“No, I’m fine,” Lindsay rapid-fired back at her. “Don’t I seem fine?”

“Ummmm,” Jill hesitated, watching Lindsay fidget before her, and noting, with a rather sick enjoyment, the brisk, repetitive tapping of Lindsay’s foot on the floor. “What’s going on, Linds?”

“Why does something have to be going on?” Lindsay returned anxiously. “Can’t I just be craving a little girl talk?”

“I guess you can,” Jill answered doubtfully, watching Lindsay as she tossed back the rest of her drink and lobbed the empty cup in her trashcan. “So what do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” Lindsay shrugged. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Uh… ‘kay,” Jill responded, taking a deep breath. “Have you talked to Pete yet?”

Lindsay sniggered at the inquiry. “No.”

“Is that funny?” Jill asked in confusion.

Considering it for a moment, though the way her mind was racing made it difficult to formulate any firm thoughts, Lindsay frowned slightly. “No. I guess not. But let’s not talk about him.”

Hands spreading in surrender, as if she didn’t know what Lindsay wanted her to segue into, Jill blew out a breath. “I don’t have anything for you, Linds.”

“Fair enough,” Lindsay bobbed her head unevenly. “I’ll go then.”

“Good,” Jill replied.

“Let’s do hypotheticals,” Lindsay promptly began.

Looking intently across her desk, Jill gave Lindsay a deliberate nod to continue.

“Let’s say,” Lindsay paused as if inventing the scenario on the spot, “you were interested in someone in a, you know, romantic kind of way. And also, you know, um, maybe sexually…”

“Right,” Jill encouraged. “I’ve been known to be interested in people that way.”

“Let’s say that you didn’t realize you were into them… like that. Or maybe, subconsciously, you sort of did, but you refused to, you know, let it surface,” Lindsay gradually slowed down with each word. “What would you do about something like that?”

“I’d tell Cindy how I felt about her,” Jill didn’t miss a beat.

Lindsay’s ensuing laugh was considerably more panic than amusement.

“Cindy?” she scoffed. “Who said anything about Cindy?”

“You did,” Jill softly responded.

“No I didn’t,” Lindsay vehemently denied. “We’re doing hypotheticals. I have no part in this. And Cindy is definitely not the other part.”

Feeling instantly nervous when Jill set back in the confident ‘gotcha’ pose she only used when she really did have someone, Lindsay wasn’t sure if she was shaking from the high dosage of caffeine or the nervous tension. Wishing she hadn’t wandered into Jill’s office in a slightly altered mental state, if she thought for a second she had the ability to walk a straight line, she would have made a break for the door.

“Remember the night you let me stay at your apartment because you thought I was too drunk to drive back to Claire’s?” Jill calmly asked.

“Yeah,” Lindsay whispered, almost afraid to answer.

“Well, I woke up in the middle of the night,” Jill leisurely said, letting the statement linger long enough that Lindsay’s foot tapping recommenced at an even more breakneck pace. “That tends to happen when I have that much to drink.”

Jittery and unnerved, Lindsay waited for Jill to finish the story, unable to continue being patient when an entirely too calculating smirk worked its way onto Jill’s features.

“Was there a point to this story, or did you just want to tell me the ins and outs of your urinary tract?”

Too pleased at her position of control, Jill chuckled lightly.

“When I got up, I heard strange noises from your bedroom,” Jill informed her in the style of a bad film noir voiceover. “Slowly, I opened your bedroom door. And you were in bed. Alone.”

“You watched me sleep?” Lindsay asked in disbelief.

“As far as I could tell, you weren’t doing a lot of sleeping,” Jill returned cheekily.

Even through her manic caffeine frenzy, Lindsay knew that she was being baited. She knew that the best course of action was to say nothing and not allow Jill to finish. Because, when Jill was that anxious to tell her something, she could trust it wouldn’t be anything innocent. But like a great and stupid swordfish swimming through the sea of life, she bit.

“What was I doing?” she asked feebly, much to Jill’s delight.

“There was some moaning and writhing,” Jill stated cheerfully. “Excessive sweating. Hands clutching at sheets. Oh, and the frequent ‘Cindy, oh God, Baby, yesses.’ Those were my favorite.”

Eyes going impossibly wide, Lindsay clutched painfully to the arms of the chair to steady herself.

“No I…” she wavered. “How long were you watching me?”

“A little while,” Jill admitted, shaking her head at Lindsay’s scowl. “What? At first, I thought you were awake, doing whatever it is that you do by yourself in your bedroom at night. By the time I realized you were asleep, and it may have technically been an invasion of your privacy, the show was too good to turn away from.” Jill popped into therapist mode. “So, how long have you been having sex dreams about Cindy?”

There was a denial right there, trapped behind her teeth. She tried to force it out, but when she finally opened her mouth, the wrong thing came spilling forth.

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “A while.”

Jill’s smirk turned into a bona fide grin, stretching all the way across her face and showing quite a few pearly whites. It really wasn’t her intention to make Jill giddy with knowledge. She’d just come in for some simple, innocuous advice. Not to confirm things Jill didn’t need to be knowing in the first place.

“And you can’t stay with me anymore,” Lindsay huffily added.

“Too late with that threat,” Jill teased. “I have my own place now. Remember? So, when are you planning to say something to her?”

“I’m not!” Lindsay exclaimed at once.

“Lindsay, you have to,” Jill demanded.

“I do not have to,” Lindsay shook her head. “There’s nothin’ to say.”

“Uh, yeah. There definitely is,” Jill amended.

“And what exactly would that be?” Lindsay grumpily muttered.

“Cindy,” Jill offered. “I’ve been wondering… are you as good in real life as you are in my dreams?”

For all of her friendly efforts, she was rewarded with such a weighty glare, if she pulled it off Lindsay’s face and stored it in her pocket, it would have pulled her pants down around her ankles.

Lindsay stared at Jill, trying to get the information she needed from Jill’s brain through telepathy, since Jill wasn’t giving her any real verbal advice.

“Bernhardt,” a detached voice from behind spun Lindsay’s head back and she received a serious case of stinkeye from Denise. “When you finish chitchatting, I need to see you.”

Denise disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared, giving some credence to the notion that she was a witch in practice and not just in name.

No longer in quite the good mood she’d been in, Jill gathered up files, and Lindsay knew that they were done for now, which maybe wasn’t such a bad thing. Who knew what else Jill might have witnessed and kept stashed to serve as a humiliating revelation at a later date?

“I cannot believe you saw that,” Lindsay grumbled as Jill got up from her desk.

“I didn’t,” Jill proudly smirked on her way out, pausing in the doorway to call over her shoulder. “Tell her Lindsay.”

So here is something odd and interesting at the same time. Air New Zealand has this marketing campaign going on or about to go on or something like that. The marketing campaign that Air New Zealand is doing is promoting life changing journeys to New Zealand. I think they filmed that Jack Black King Kong remake in New Zealand. That would be pretty life changing - you know the whole super sized gorilla thingie. Well, anyways, Air New Zealand is doing something pretty unique to promote this new marketing campaign. They are planning on using what they are terming “cranial billboards” which is basically just someone’s bald head. Say what? I know. So they are actually doing a casting call later this month where they will select 30 lucky adults to have their heads shaved and then tattooed for this marketing campaign. And then those cranial billboards are part of Air New Zealand’s Los Angeles marketing campaign. You can see an example of what it would look like in the pic below. Pretty wild, eh? I should say so. If this has peaked your interest in Air New Zealand, you can punch them up on the web at www.airnewzealand.com to get some more info or even to book a trip. You know, maybe they should get Britney Spears in on this. Remember she did whole crazy head shaving thing a while back? So clearly she would not mind being bald for a bit.