I love to watch TV when I get a chance. It doesn’t happen very often though. I end up recording the shows I like and watching them later. That way I can fast forward through commercials. One of my all time favorite shows is Mindfreak. It stars the illusionist Criss Angel. I was disappointed at the beginning of his new season because his ‘demonstrations’ weren’t really mindfreaky like they usually are. (He is in the middle of working on his own Cirque du Soleil show, so I’m thinking he’s thinking more about that then his show.)

I have to say though that this demonstration he did in this video freaked my mind. (Viewer discretion might be advised…)  I think I almost passed out watching it. I haven’t felt that way before! There are skeptics that say that the guy that worked with Criss was an actor and an amputee…blah blah blah. But, I think the way to watch it is to relax and believe.

What should you believe but just can’t?

Well folks you may or may not have notice my lack of visits and lack of comments…

Sorry all not my fault…

This is set to continue for probably another week or so.. Christ I hope not much more than that..

My Puppy with ear or lack of is the cause… on the weekend he scratch himself again on the chest but his little nails were so sharp he slices his chest open… yep.. I am swearing now.. so we dressed it and back to the vets… on the way he got his sock off and also sliced under his front leg (arm pit) he now has about 30+ stitches between these latest acquisitions…

Today he burst 2 stitches so has a lovely mess happening under his arm.. I cant get him to the vets until Wednesday at the earliest… so for the next week he is to eat, drink and wee, then get wrapped up like a baby and kept still…

You really should try keeping a 3-4month puppy still for a week.. with two other dogs wanting to play and a 9 year old with the standard needs …

Just thought I would fill you all in… not a-wall, although its a thought…lol…

catch you all as soon as we resume our normal programing….

It seems these days that anyone with a beef about something seems to automatically assume the rest of us need to hear about it. Last week a huge traffic jam was caused and millions of pounds lost due to a “Fathers for Justice” protest.

So far almost every day the Olympics has been spoilt to a certain degree by the ‘Free Tibet’ mob. Each year in many countries untold inconvenience is caused by anti G8, anti globalisation and many other forms of demonstration, surely they’ve made their point by now. Whilst it is absolutely the right of people to protest what about the majority of us who don’t agree with their view point or perhaps their methods and have our lives disrupted, what about the effect on us. We bear the brunt of the cost of policing a marauding gang of Swampy lookalikes, the revenues lost by business, the fact you can’t go into the city and do what you want to do on that day, etc, etc.

Should we put a lid on this sort of thing and restrict it to certain days only or should these people actually use the deomcratic process and get themselves elected to the government and force the change from that side, after all its supposed to be the best system in the world and this is the way it works isn’t it? 

It is an alternative. Stamping your feet and screaming in public is what kids do when they can’t get their own way right?

Five years of Internet publishing (and one excellent print venture) — we’ve never gone more than a couple of days late.

This time around, we went a full ten days past deadline – and if we were getting paid a tidy sum (or any sum at all) we would have been fired.

This Internet zine of mine was started some years ago partially due to the publication I wrote for closing it’s doors, stopping the presses and leaving me feeling unfinished.  I had written inspirational & motivational articles as “The Irreverent Reverend” (you didn’t know I had a degree in theology & a ministerial license, didya?)  and I needed an outlet.  What started as a small endeavor has ended up becoming a full time gig. 

Here’s the secret no one else knows … shhhh …we really went late because I’m the production editor and my daily life truly does interfere with the cyberspace form I inhabit on the net.   24 hours in a day just isn’t enough.  If ONLY I didn’t HAVE to sleep, yanno?  How I wish I could find a way to make a living doing what I do best. 

Which brings me to my truest point besides announcing the most recent edition — what is your passion?  And what would you do simply because it brings you satisfaction, joy, and a sense of accomplishment?

You know mine.  Go read the latest issue of The Hiss Quarterly — hey man, it’s free!

It’s high time for another free flowers caption competition here at Flowers - our 30th!

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To enter just pop in ONE CAPTION in the comments section AND include one fact about yourself, your blog, your website, your business or how you feel at the time of writing. Your chance to have fun and promote yourself. So here we GO! flower folk:

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Hi GSTF’s readers.

Sunday morning i’ll be setting off for a week with my kids to my Mum and Dad’s house nr Cambridge - lets hope the sun shines!

Unfortunately, my Mum is on dial up so there’s little chance of hooking up the Mac’ to the internet. That means after my last post tomorrow (I’m trying to get round all the various social sites in turn), i’ll be off-line for a week.

A Whole Week!

Will you miss me? will anyone notice? will this dent my rankings or jeopardise membership of any social sites and will I have any ground to make up to get back in the ‘photo gift’ social rankings upon my return?

Would I be better off not having a holiday? What do you reckon and what have you done when off-line for a whole week?

Hi all,

For the past three nights I’ve had terrible insomnia.  Blame it on stress or totally screwing up my sleep cycle with working late hours but it’s there and I just late in bed for hours.  Eyes closed, thinking about sleep until I’m numb on one side and roll over to lie on the other side.  I usually fall asleep about five or so giving me just enough time to experience many weird dreams before getting up for the day. 

So, I’m looking for tips to help me get to sleep cause counting sheep isn’t working, nor are more complicated kinds of math.  What do you guys do to get to sleep?  Bring me your tired, your weary, your fatigued stories…

I mentioned in the comments that last weekend was horrendous for us here. In many ways it was on so many levels.

It started normally with no hassles, Moppets social calender was set, my online workload organised and Hubby’s horse race schedual sorted….

We have one puppy left from Bonnies’s and Buster’s record breaking litter. The runt remained with us as he was much smaller than the others and very skinny dispite attempts to feed him up.

He is now a bouncing healthy 3 month old puppy, and we have been unable to find a home for him. So he appears to be our new addition…. hmmmm 3 dogs… busy…

On Friday evening he cut the base of his ear… it bleed and bleed… and after much panic and time I stopped the bleeding got him settled and after the normal procedures he was fine. On Saturday morning he scratch it and then shook his head, long floppy ears move pretty fast, his ear swelled up like a stuffed toy, you could actually watch it grow.

I called the vet who is 3 hours away, he said his ear was bleeding internally, forming a giant blood blister. Wait until Monday or Tuesday and bring him up for surgery. We did… after placing a bucket on his head.

On Monday we took him to the vets, when we arrived the vet removed the bucket, the back of his ear had burst slightly and was a mess (nothing we could do it happened on the way up) then as they prepared him for surgery his ear burst… the blood blister… he has had a little of his ear amputated, it is pinned together front and back with multiple button things, as the skinned pulled away from the insides, his head is bandaged and bandaged again, then yesterday because his face has swollen from the trauma, he started to have breathing difficulty, the bandages tightened with the swelling and I had to cut them in places so he could breathe… I dont who had the harder job, me cutting or Hubby holding…

During all this he has not yelped, whimpered, whined, complained in any way shape or form, he has just accepted it and that is that… He is on very strong antibiotics and pain killers which he can only have every 12 hours… the hardest part is the last 2 hours as they have worn off…..

He will be fine and should be back to normal in the next 3-4 weeks… I will have new photos of him hopefully all going well today….

I find most animals are accepting of situations and what is happening far more than people, possibly because they do not understand, but trust their care givers to look after them…

What amazing things have your pets or animals in general shown you over the years?

I am really into analyzing my dreams. At one point I used to write my dreams in the morning in a diary so I could see if there was any patterns. And as a writer it can be fun to use your dreams as the basis for a short story. I have stopped writing them down because I put way too much pressure on myself to remember every little detail. But I have noticed a recurring theme…

I am away at someone’s house and I have to pack to go home…or I am moving from my house and I have to pack…it’s always about packing. But the part that always happens everytime I have packing dreams is that I can never find a way to bring all my books with me. It happens with other things I want to pack, but I notice it the most with books.

I love my books, I have about 400 books scattered around my house waiting to be read. But I don’t have time to read them lately. I work seven days a week, fourteen hours a day and do an average of 15 posts a day. I don’t have time to sit and actually pay attention to what a book has to say.

I bet my dream has to do with me taking the time to read. Back before I started working online I would read a novel a day, yes, I read that much! In the end I guess I’m afraid that something will happen to me and I won’t get a chance to read them. I guess it sounds stupid doesn’t it…

What is something that you should make time for but don’t?

I think abuse in relationships isn’t talked about much. Why? Because people might be embarrased about it? Afraid that they might get hurt talking about it?

I was in an abusive relationship, it will be ten years ago this weekend that I left it. I am very open with my experience of how I decided to pack all my things at 2am and take my daughter in the middle of the night to the local women’s shelter. I talk about it like it was a part of my life. I will never forget it. I was a strong enough person to look beyond the death threat that was placed on my head if I ever left and left.

You know I tried to chicken out half way through but then I would have been up all night putting everything away. It was then or never. Was I scared! Yes! I had called the police to come to my house so I could leave without my husband trying to keep my daughter. I had to put my fears aside and get out of the house to keep us safe. My husband said that he came to the house about an hour or so later after we left and didn’t even realize we were gone…See why it was better that I left?

What makes me upset is that there will be doubters, thinking I am making this up to get attention. But I want people to know that you can do it. You can leave that abusive relationship and be safe. The road hasn’t been easy…I still sometimes look behind me thinking I am being followed. I’m not sure if that feeling will ever go away. But I was strong enough, even though I was only 23, to do it.

What do you need to stand up for?