Subway Five Dollar Foot Long Commericals!!!

Now I have to say I have never seen the parking lot so packed at Subway since they came out with this five dollar foot long deal. But!
The commercials are making me agitated.. I catch myself singing it all the time. However, I suppose that is the point. LOL

The Moment Of Truth

I will admit, I was watching The Moment Of Truth. The blonde ex-whore wife who is seriously damaged in her soul, confessing all the shitty things she had done;stealing from work, cheating, wishing she had never married her husband in particular, to name a few.
She lost all her money, and it was considerable, to this question. Do you think you are a good person?
Her parents were nodding, her father said something fatherly to which she answered; yes I think through everything I am a good person.
WRONG.
An episode of Boston Legal was on the other night. Allan was doing his closing statement about this case where a woman ended up dead after one of these reality TV shows.
He said, "Parading psychologically damaged people on national television in the interest of making money, is just wrong."
I don't watch The Moment of Truth anymore.
Thanks James Spader, I may not think about you naked anymore, but a babe in your soul you will always be.

Nicoel Suzanne

Names For Tools

You may find this helpful around the house/garage....


DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat
metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and
flings your soda across the room, splattering it against that
freshly-stained heirloom piece you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under
the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and
hard-earned guitar callouses from fingers in about the time it takes you
to say, 'Yeouw....'

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes
until you die of old age, or for perforating something behind and beyond
the original intended target object.

SKIL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of
blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor
touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs. Caution: Avoid using for
manicures.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built for frustration
enhancement. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable
motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal
your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt
heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer
intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

WELDING GLOVES: Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction
of intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable
objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside
the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2
socket you've been searching for the last 45 minutes.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood
projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after
you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly
under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 4X4: Used for levering an automobile upward
off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known
drill bit that snaps neatly off in bolt holes thereby ending any possible
future use.

RADIAL ARM SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops
to scare neophytes into choosing another line of work.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of
everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that
inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end
opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a
drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, 'the sunshine vitamin,'
which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside,
its main purpose is to consume 40- watt light bulbs at about the same rate
that 105mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours
of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is
somewhat misleading. The accessory socket within the base, has been
permanently rendered useless, unless requiring a source of 117vac power to
shock the mechanic
senseless.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids,
opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt;
but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw
heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to
convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning
power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that
travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact gun that grips rusty bolts
which were last over tightened 40 years ago by someone at VW, and
instantly rounds
off their heads. Also used to quickly snap off lug nuts.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket
you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is
used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent
to the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard
cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents
such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector
magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful
for slicing work clothes, but only while in use. It is also useful for
removing large chunks of human flesh from the user's hands.

DAMMIT TOOL: (I have lot's of these) Any handy tool that you grab and
throw across the garage while yelling 'DAMMIT' at the top of your lungs.
It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need after a really
big hammer

Dirty Joke

A woman walks into a H & R Block Tax accountant's office and tells him that
she needs help to file her taxes.

The accountant says, 'Before we begin, I'll need to ask you a fewquestions.'

He gets her name, address, social security number, etc. And then asks, 'What
is your occupation?'

'I'm a prostitute,' she says.

The H & R Block accountant is somewhat taken aback and says, 'No, No, No, that
won't work. Let's try to rephrase that.'

The woman says, 'OK, I'm a high-end call girl.'

'No, that still won't work. Try again.'

They both think for a minute; then the woman says, 'I'm a chicken farmer.'

The accountant asks, 'What does chicken farming have to do with being a
prostitute?'

'Well, I raised a thousand little peckers last year.'

'Chicken Farmer it is. '

Go Greece Lightnin'

Me and hub drunk last night doing the Greece soundtrack..... LMFAO!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vvqPJB0Aqk

Frakkin Amazon Chit Again!!!

First, I would like to say I am a free thinker. I have no vested interest in any of these companies. Though I do own stock, I own stock in many companies and therefore leave the brain$childs to do my bidding. I don't run a publishing house, or a press, or have a chit load of friends and/colleagues pushing me into spouting off their opinions as my own, without thought to all who may hear my words. I am only a lowly writer and I often refer to myself as an author in progress. I have read everything available to me in the search engines about this matter. I know who is posting what. As a free person I can make my own assumptions as to why, all the while confident that I have educated myself intelligently about the matter. Therefore, until there is an update, I'm going to stop commenting on this because its pointless trying to get through to people, once everything has been presented to them in clear form. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and it is certainly not my mission to change their minds, but I feel responsible to explain why I have arrived at my own. Though it may be an unpopular opinion, it is not less worthy of attention. Please read the whole thing only if you are remotely interested in another perspective. I certainly do not want to waste anyone's time who is just looking for a debate. Think people; where are you getting your information from. Everything has a source and some sources have their own interests, as they should, at heart. Many questions are addressed on this forum I have provided the link below. Please read the whole five pages of the thread before posting more questions here, as I suspect this subject might be getting tiresome to some being that there is no new material having transpired. That being said... I found this, which is the most intelligent perspective on the whole thing here. Not that you aren't all bright and shiny intelligent people, this is just the most "big picture" kind of perspective I have seen and share her sentiments. I do not know her personally, and have not spoken with her, though I do hope to remedy this posthaste. I do know she publishes RPG related items, on a very small scale, and is a horror writer herself, as well as a free thinker. I am using her post because quite simply, I couldn't have said it better myself, literally. LOL

Akyna The Gray Witch of Bellmaw 1st Level RPGnetter Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 218

Re: Amazon PoD Take-Over? I'm going to try to address a few points that I have been drilling into people at some other forums. 1. Amazon is not obligated to list POD titles as "in stock." Because they aren't in stock. POD titles are printed as they are ordered. In the past, they have listed them as in stock, with the understanding that the POD service would immediately print and ship. However, smaller services (and even LSI on occasion) have not followed through on this. When a package arrives late, Amazon is the one that gets the heat from the customer, not the POD printer. 2. Amazon is NOT deleting POD title listings. They aren't even saying they aren't available. Non-Booksurge books are still being listed on Amazon. However, the ADD TO SHOPPING CART button is being replaced with SEE ALL BUYING OPTIONS. Amazon has a huge pool of third party booksellers that sell through there system. The books can still be bought on the Amazon site. The only difference to a customer is that the books no longer qualify for free shipping. 3. LSI and most POD services only offer Amazon and other retailers a short discount of 20% or less. When you are offering free shipping to customers, that means you can end up losing money on those sales. 4. If you are working directly with LSI, you have an option to set higher discounts, and make your books returnable. If you do this, your books appear in the LSI system as "traditional" availability. Not as POD titles. If you are a small press that has your books listed like this, Amazon doesn't even KNOW your books are POD, and therefore this whole argument is a mute point. 5. This issue is primarily aimed at the 3rd party POD services like Lulu, Booklocker, etc. Not the individual small press publishers. When you as an author set up a retail title through these services, you have to double the price of your product to set the retail price. However LSI only lists the titles with a "short discount" of 20% or less. You as the author don't get the difference, it is eaten somewhere between your 3rd party service, LSI, and Ingrams. Example: Sample Book. 6 x 9, black and white, 96 pages I want to set my retail price for this book at $10.59 Lulu/LSI Fixed price: Manufacturing/printing cost: $3.46 Lulu commission: .37 Calculated royalty: $1.46 (what my profit is on a book sold for $10.59) TOTAL FIXED PRICE: $5.29 This number is then doubled to set the retail price. Retail mark-up: $5.30 So Amazon gets a 20% discount or less, off the retail. So Amazon pays $8.48. That leaves $3.19 unaccounted for? Where does that go? LSI/Ingram's pocket. 6. You can use the FREE Createspace service to set up your books with Amazon. You do not have to pay a $50 fee unless you want the pro account, which just gives you better pricing. Booksurge prints these titles, but you do NOT need to buy a Booksurge package. You can continue to use whatever service you want elsewhere. 7. The CS package lets Amazon take a 40% cut (not 48% as is being bantered around...go to the website and read the details). And you actually pay LESS per book. Example: Same book as noted above Createspace/Amazon (standard) Fixed price for printing: $3.66 (book less than 108 pages) Amazon discount: $4.24 Profit: $2.69 Now if you actually decide to use the pro plan, your profit looks like this: Createspace/Amazon (pro plan) Fixed price: $2.25 (book less than 108 pages) Amazon 40% of retail=$4.24 Profit: $4.10 to the author The bottom line is, this is a GOOD THING for niche publishers and self-publishers, because you can deal directly with Amazon without having to pay to use 3rd party services! I've actually been using CS for some time already to handle my Amazon sales, because I make more per sale than if it is handled through LSI. 8. 3rd party POD services ALREADY use multiple different printers. Lulu has two different printers that handle European orders, and a half dozen printers to handle various book orders in the U.S. And Canada. Sending the electronic files to Amazon to handle is no more work for them than sending to LSI or anyone else. The only difference for Lulu or a 3rd party service is that they are paying a bigger discount to Amazon, but at the same time they aren't paying anything to LSI/Ingrams. So if you are a 3rd party service that isn't hiding a lot of fees in that mark-up, its 6 of one, half a dozen of the other as far as you are concerned. If, on the other hand, you are hiding fees or using some "new math" to calculate retail pricing, this eats into the 3rd party service's money. 9. Most of the news sources that are reporting on the story are getting their information from two sources: PublishAmerica and Angela Hoy. If you read the articles, they are almost all circular articles that reference each other. We all know PA doesn't have a good reputation for honesty, so we can throw them out the window. Angela I have a great deal of respect for, but at the same time she owns a 3rd party POD service that charges up front fees to use, and the notion that authors can set up directly with Amazon means some of her customers may not need her any more. So she has a vested interest in the status quo. __________________ Bards and Sages Publisher of Speculative Fiction and RPGs

A Word Before You Get On The IPetition Bandwagon.

Epetitions have about as much chance of getting anything done as I have of waking up on the moon tomorrow. They are a form of slacktivism and are a waste of time. They may however succeed in getting your name and email and other information to spam spiders. Think about it, if they did work we wouldn't be at war, puppies would all have homes, children wouldn't ever go to bed hungry, and gas would be 50 cents a gallon... Just saying. Snopes Amazon has many great and overpaid lawyers working for them who expected a lot of outcry about this, and who wouldn't have purchased BookSurge in the first place if they weren't perfectly within their rights to develop and use it as their sole source of POD on their site. You might succeed in getting them more publicity than they could have ever hoped for... It's certainly helping my stock... So before you forward the plight that is the POD market try to think of where its coming from. Are you just pining for little vanity presses that may or may not be out for the author and worried about their own finances? (shrugs) ¸..· ´¨¨)) -:¦:- ¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) ((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:- Nicoel Suzanne -:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*

Is It Just Me Or...

Is it just me or is every guy on those Eztenze commercials a fancy lad?

Total Economic Collapse by September 2008? Are You Frakkin Kidding Me?

I read something today that normally wouldn't bother me. It said that the collapse of the US economy was imminent and that they had it predicted down to the very month it would come to fruition. I admit freely I love a good conspiracy. No, I don't wear an aluminum foil helmet or anything. I am just a lowly writer who mixes Sci-Fi Fantasy with a lot of sex, and a lot of big guns. But a couple of things really bothered me about this.
For the first time in my life I actually know people who are collecting unemployment. Not for a few weeks until they are into another job, but until it runs out. A lot of people, friends, neighbors, Internet pals, name it. I know many homes in my neighborhood on the Great Lake Erie waterfront are for sale for the last few years, yet do not sell. I know people who are selling them that cannot afford them, and are losing them now. Many neighbors. A scary amount of people in my small life, just south of the big city of Detroit that was hit incredibly hard by the plant layoffs. But this does not effect the auto industry alone. No they gave these people "buy outs" who in turn took their money and moved away, out of this state.
People cannot afford health care on 700 bucks every two weeks. Tell me if your kid wasn't sick that you wouldn't do just about anything to help them? Including burning a hospital down in protest? How far would you go?
What if you weren't alone and there were hundreds if not thousands of you who were sleeping on mattresses I have seen pop up as of late under the freeways overpasses. Regular families who are out of a job and out of a home and too scared to stay in shelters with crack-heads, sleeping under overpasses.
What if you all banded together to publicly display your dissent of the American Government. Some people might call this a riot, but one thing is for sure. During civil unrest gas trucks stop showing up to gas stations. A thinly stretched military finds it impossible to control civil unrest in our larger cities. The cities drain of resources and food, and eventually clean water and the peoples begin spreading out to find the things they need to live, and taking them when found.
Patrols round up people who practically volunteer to be shuttled off to the REX 84 imprison camps that were set up just in case this ever came to be. There they get as many meals a day as they can eat and all the fresh water and bunks they can use. This is used to lure in roving people who refuse to calm themselves and bow to the dangling food and water offered up by the government who led them into false mortgages and the jobless hell that was about to befall them in the first place.
Since the average person goes hungry within a couple of days and can die of thirst the same, how far away are we from this worst case scenario?
Can we really speak as to what we would and would never do in the name of feeding our children from a government who is run by a president who left us high and dry, and the idiots who voted for him knowing full well in his history he had bankrupt 4 companies before the ripe old age of 50?
Do we deserve any different?
It makes you wonder if a blowjob isn't such a bad thing...