Host a variety show

Submitted by sarajean on 10/20/12 7:16am
Have some fun for a cause—or just for the hell of it!

Tonight we attended a free community theater variety show that we’d been looking forward to seeing, and we had such a wonderful time! I couldn’t believe that more people didn’t attend, since it was free (with donations accepted). I remember when we hosted a variety show in high school and we had a TON of supporters come to the event. Of course, most were parents, and this show was put on by adults, so I suppose their parents were busy!

Have you ever considered hosting a variety show—just for fun, or to raise funds for a cause you support? It can be SO much fun, and if you have a good turnout, you can raise hundreds of dollars for your charity or organization. When we hosted a show, we simply posted a sign-up sheet, held rehearsals, and advertised the show throughout the school and community.Obviously, if you are not in school, you’ll need more than sign-up sheets! If your town has a community website or Facebook page (or both), those are good places to post sign-ups. Libraries, city halls, and private companies that give you permission—such as offices and restaurants—are also good. You can’t put one sign-up sheet everywhere, but you can make a flyer from which people can tear off your number and call you to sign up (or email you, if desired).

You’ll also need to secure revenue. If you have a community center, they might let you host it on location for free or a nominal fee, especially if you make it clear that it’s for charity. Be sure that you have all of the equipment you need, from microphones to lighting, speakers to props. Most acts will probably bring their own props, and it’s a good idea to remind them to do so as well as to bring any music they may need.

Encourage a wide variety of people to sign up. You wouldn’t want all jugglers, of course—but a juggler, singer, dancer, comedian and puppeteer would make for a fun evening! Be sure to include these suggestions on your flyers calling for talent.

And while gong shows are fun, be careful about holding them so nobody’s feelings get hurt! If it’s just a funny show your organization is hosting and people want to be gonged on purpose, feel free. If not, you may want to rethink the idea! For further ideas regarding variety shows, click here.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Submitted by sarajean on 10/20/12 7:07am
If you pick ONE YA fantasy to read this year, let it be this one.

Laini Taylor has wrapped me up in her spell, made me fall in love, and then crushed me between her deft fingers in a single novel. Daughter of Smoke and Bone is one of the most amazing books I’ve read not just this year, but of all time. It is the tale of Karou, a young woman attempting to discover who she is as she attends art school in Prague.

Karou’s hair naturally grows blue, she is covered in various tattoos and she can make tiny wishes come true. She was raised by some pretty creepy creatures—some might even call them demons or devils—but she has no idea who she was, where she came from, and who her parents were. When Karou meets an angel one day, her entire world is spun upside-down—and I am telling you, it’s not what you think.

Sure, there’s romance—but Taylor’s story is more of an adventure, a sweeping epic of battle and good versus evil (or is it?) and most of all, the absolutely unexpected. Readers are given clues, but these clues are purposefully vague and I, for one, could not manage to decipher them and was blown away by where the story goes—and ends.

The story became so out of left field for a while—told in past tense rather than the rest of the story, which is present—that I did grow antsy, willing it to hurry up and divulge its secrets; but that delicious red herring, that skillful winding of tales of love, war, and betrayal, takes time. Once you unwrap the package, of course, it’s so worth it—and so unlike anything you’d ever expected.

Karou is also one of those heroines I love—fierce and feminine, an artist who can take care of herself with a knife but still has plenty of vulnerability without being fragile. Her best friend is also fun—and another female, which is nice, given how little media places emphasis on female relationships unrelated to males.  

The writing itself is exceptional as well, with rich descriptions and spot-on dialogue. It’s one of those books that’s just sheer joy to read—no annoyances, no eye-rolling; just gripping adventure all the way through, the way I like it. The book’s sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight, is now in circulation and I cannot wait to read it! I only have to wait in line behind four others at the library who had the foresight to book it before I did…

Take action for animals

Submitted by sarajean on 10/20/12 7:03am
Sign these petitions for critters—and for humans, too.

Do you love animals—or women and clean water, for that matter? Here are a few ways you can take action this week and help some of your favorite people—and critters—out right away.

Click the following actions to lend your voice to causes you care about today.

Stop arctic drilling

No matter how many dying polar bears we witness every year, no matter how much more endangered our animals are, we still call for their blood with that awful “Drill, baby, drill!” slogan. This is revolting—especially since we have absolutely no clean-up plan or way to clean up drilling miss in the Arctic, and a spill would be catastrophic. Click here to ask that we not drill in the Arctic, now or ever.Save wolves from poaching

A family recently murdered some wolves and shipped their bloody bodies to family members. A FedEx employee saw the blood and tracked the packages to the family, but they are not being held responsible. Click here to ask that they be prosecuted for murdering these wolves and to ensure that other people do not do the same.

Stop hounding bears

Hunters are using dogs tracked with GPS units to chase after and scare bears before cruelly shooting them while they are treed or otherwise in a compromising, unfair position. This kind of hunting will lead to severe declines in population in the future if it’s allowed to continue—and it’s simply despicable and unfair to the animals. Click here to ask that it be stopped.

Stop White-Nose Syndrome

Our bat populations are severely declining due to white-nose syndrome. This distressing news has closed many caves to the public as scientists attempt to figure the problem out and save the bats, animals that help us keep our insect populations—particularly disease-causing mosquitoes!—down.  Click here to call on our elected officials to fund research into this disease and to stop it as soon as possible.

Defend clean water

Although the Clean Water Act has kept us healthy and our waters clean for decades, our politicians are posed to gut the Act right now even as it turns forty years old. Click here and ask that they defend this act and all of the protection it affords us and our environment.

Sign the Bill of Reproductive Rights

It’s astounding that we even need something to protect our rights to our own bodies in this country, but apparently life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness just don’t extend to one’s ovaries, which the public is fighting for rights over. Click here to check out the Bill of Reproductive Rights and add your name to the petition. 

Adopt a turkey for Thanksgiving

Submitted by sarajean on 10/20/12 7:00am
Put your money where your mouth is—or, rather, where it would be.

Vegetarians get a lot of slack. I know; I was one for years. People get defensive asking about your lifestyle, as if it is a personal affront to their own! They’ll demand to know why you don’t eat meat, claim they could never do it themselves, flaunt their meat eating in front of you, and otherwise do weird things. Profess to love purple while they love pink, fine; declare yourself a vegetarian and all hell breaks loose.

But we all know that being a vegetarian can be a very healthy way to live, as well as a way to save lives. There are lots of other ways to save animal lives as well, such as through turkey adoption during Thanksgiving. Chances are, if you are a vegetarian, you already have tofurky or other options on Thanksgiving Day rather than turkey.

Did you know that you can also save other turkeys from being eaten by sponsoring them through various animal welfare organizations, such as Farm Sanctuary? If interested, you can click here to “adopt” a turkey and save him or her from certain holiday death. It costs $30 to adopt one turkey and $210 to save an entire flock. It sounds like a lot, but with this much money, you could save a turkey for the price of about six lattes from a coffee shop.

Rep. Walsh and his assault on women

Submitted by becksta on 10/19/12 10:55pm
We, as women, are under attack.

Go Cosmo. I mean the magazine and I don’t often say or think that. Cosmo just had a short article about Rep. Joe Walsh and his position on woman’s reproductive rights. He is against women having abortions even when their LIVES ARE IN DANGER. Do you understand the implications of this? As the Cosmo writer observes, he would prefer that women die instead of getting an abortion.

Because Rep. Walsh is a man, he will never get pregnant. He will never face that difficult decision. And he should have no part in deciding whether women should have the right to choose. The attack on women right now is horrific.

Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut after she testified about birth control in front of congress. Representative Akin wants to classify rape as legitimate or not. Whatever that means.

Women in my extremely liberal home state, Washington, might get denied access to Plan B at certain pharmacies if the Republican candidate for governor is elected. (Please donate money to Jay Inslee to prevent this from happening in Washington State and soon, because the ballots are out.) We cannot let the white, conservative men take control in the United States. The time to move forward is now. We cannot move backward.

What can you do?

  • Champion the candidates who support women.
  • Please get the word out to the rest of the country about the conservative and scary things that are happening in your own states.
  • Tell the press. Tell your friends. Tell Planned Parenthood and other organizations who work hard to support women’s reproductive rights. Write letters to the editor like THIS one.
  • Get involved. Volunteer.
  • Donate money to the candidates you believe in. Even if you can’t afford much, grassroots support counts.
  • Share Facebook posts, YouTube videos, newspaper articles, blog posts, this post and anything else that gets the word out about what men like Rep. Walsh and Rep. Akin are doing.
  • Show your outrage to Rush Limbaugh and his imitators who think it is ok to call women names by complaining to their television and radio stations.
  • Talk to your daughters about these issues.

As women, we make up half of the country, and we are more than just a “voting block,” we are people who need our voices heard.  We CAN’T let the men be the deciding factor on this issue. We need to stick together and make our voices heard.

PETA and Pokemon

Submitted by darksaturn7 on 10/19/12 9:07pm
And they wonder why most people hate them.

I will admit this: I live like 30 minutes away from PETA HQ. The people around here loathe PETA with a fiery passion. Some because they like their meat, dang it! Some because of their not-so-moral tactics to garner attention to themselves. Some due to their hypocrisy (save the animals, but euthanize strays in the party rescue van for no other reason than space issues). Some due to their holy attitude to non-vegans and/or PETA supporters. 

And some because, quite simply, they are so antagonizing and crazy that the only one more hated down here is Pat Robertson. Virginia says its sorry. So sorry, guys.
PETA is known to have super models and C-list celebs wander around near nude with fake blood and fur coats on street corners, to parody video games. They redid quirky hit Cooking Mama, indie hit Meat Boy, and even hit on not sexily the Mario Bros. I mean c’mon the Mario Bros. a largely inoffensive game. Don’t get me wrong, Princess Peach isn’t a bastion of progressiveness, but really the games aren’t trying to offend anyone – they are cute and appeal to all ages. No murderous vibes in Mushroomland.
 
But leave it to PETA to see what most sane people don’t see. They saw a bloody pelt for a Tanookie suit, but then they landed on that bastion of questionable animal treatment – Pokémon. Considering that Pokemon was out since 1995 or so, it took PETA that long to get upset over it?
 
Mind you, it did seem rather mean to house animals into little balls, but assuming the PETA dude actually played the games, they realize they all had a theme of treating said animals with kindness and care. But I doubt any did and so a super bloody, overly preachy version resulted that was more unintentionally hilarious than convincing.
 
I kind of found the idea of beating up your old trainers funny. The legions of people who grew up with Pokémon…not so much.  Good job PETA, you managed to piss off another segment of the population. Now where is my World of Warcraft parody? I want to see you use your budget to destroy your cause more. 
 

EA in a nutshell

Submitted by darksaturn7 on 10/19/12 9:07pm
Oh how far has the mighty fallen.

Oh Electronic Arts. You were so beloved once upon a time. You had such wonderful, ground breaking titles that people probably still play and wistfully dream about. You are like the sci-fi version of Blizzard, what with their just as storied franchises in the fantasy realm (StarCraft being the sci-fi nod and all). But like Blizz, EA, you kind of lost your way. The gaming world was your oyster. The budget to make more wondrous masterpieces seemed unlimited.

But those times have long past. That budget made you cocky in how pretty you can make something, but miserly in when you’d push the envelope (Dante’s Inferno was NOT pushing the envelope, it was distorting a piece of storied literature down to the lowest denominator, EA!).
 
It tarnished what were once gold mine franchises into terrible rip-off parades like the Sims (RIP Maxis) and got lazy on others (Mass Effect anyone?). Yes, it seems the big names in general have lost that spark but unlike Blizzard and Capcom, EA has fallen the most visibly and horrendously.
The Internet hate machine has latched on and will never let go of that hemorrhaging wound that EA now sports. Then the Internet never forgets and never forgives…
 
Anyway, I found this spot-on little movie from YouTube, mocking both the company’s greedy ways with the too loyal fans wanting more, then acting surprised when what they get is just as bad as what they had before and subsequently acting confused and sad, despite getting the same level of failure time and time again. It’s rather amusing, yet true.
 

EA in a Nutshell (Similar applies to Activision, Blizzard, etc.)

 

World record free fall

Submitted by darksaturn7 on 10/19/12 9:07pm
As told by Redbull.

I was talking to my SO and was rather shocked at what he saw at work the other day. He had to show me and just the title made me cringe a little (I hate heights and especially long drops so you are not going to see me on a roller coaster like ever). Mind you, when I see the words ‘free fall’ I tend to think of some crazy sky diver jumping from a plane at a high altitude spiraling down to use a parachute at the last second.

Mission Accomplished - Red Bull Stratos - World Record Freefall

 
 
But maybe it was the Red Bull. Maybe the guy is simply a professional daredevil and wanted to outdo his fellow daredevils. Or maybe he simply is that brave. Either way, the guy with a I’m sure carefully choreographed and trained group was launched into the stratosphere in this tiny capsule thing that was more chair balloon than anything. He was hovering above the clouds to where it looked almost as if he was in space – and just like a boss stepped out to fall straight down back to earth.
 
Supposedly this whole stunt was to measure velocity levels or some science-related stuff. All the world saw was one brave guy who, without readable fear, jumped off from an inhuman height to stare down at what was the earth and jump. I don’t think even the moronic guys on Jackass would dare do this. A world record was definitely made though. See, science can be both thrilling and fun to watch!
 

Could we actually be living in the Matrix?

Submitted by darksaturn7 on 10/19/12 9:06pm
I kind of don't want know.

Everyone’s heard of the Matrix. The movies (well, depending on who you talk to, the first one only counted) had everyone ponder, waxing philosophical on the nature of reality and what if we indeed were living out our lives in a simulated world – and conversely were in reality living out our natural lives as these living batteries, wasting away to power our robotic overlords in wistful ignorant slumber. The rise in role playing and people wanting to be called NEO attested to this.

Most well-adjusted people knew this was simply a movie. It was a fantasy, there are no robot overlords. Or at least if we did have overlords using us, they’d at least not be so faulty as to allow such a deviation as Mr. Anderson to exist or would’ve figured out how to un-blot the sun (or live without it) and not be dependent on the very things they conquered to live.
But I digress.
 
 
Science or specifically physicists are now claiming that yes, we may indeed be living out our lives in a sort of Matrix/Lotus Eater machine. Something that, according to a newly released paper, can be proven by modern day technology. Something about light patterns and the rules of physics. All I wonder is should I start searching for that huge plug at the back of my neck? 
 
Then again, I sort of aggressed with the sorts obvious turncoat in (I think) the third one – ignorance is definitely bliss. I could live with not knowing I’m a glorified potato battery being shown pretty pictures. 
 

Smooth Operators

Submitted by darksaturn7 on 10/19/12 9:05pm
Call centers made cool

Have you ever worked at a call center? I bet most of you raised your hands. I am sorry. So sorry. As a former call center employee, I can attest to how unsatisfying that line of work is, especially if you do outbound calls. Well, you’d think that one of most frustrating jobs ever would stay that way but an indie developer has made it into a rather true and accurate version of a call center. Reality, watch out, we have simulated jobs now.

This Sims game (aside from the generally too happy employees) simulates how a call center is built from the ground up and how it is run – down to the daily quotas, interactions with customers, to management of employees, hiring process, the works. And despite how boring that sounds, it actually isn’t. It, if anything, gives you a level of appreciation to the guys that run such places. It also made me realize that I’m glad I didn’t have that kind of responsibility. 

 

Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos Trailer

 
 
It never occurred to me how much micro-management of every single employee occurred. Schedules, to paychecks, to performance all are simulated in this game. You can even budget building expansions with additional cubicles and elevators. The only thing I found a little silly is the player character trying to cheer up workers by doing a cheerleader dance. Depending on my old bosses, this might have ranged from being too cheesy to a bit horrifying.
 
This call center Sims game is available on Xbox Live for only 80 points. 
 

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