On Blogging, and How to Do it Properly.

This is my two-hundred and twenty-fifth post on here. In case you were curious.

I read an article the other day, where they said that if you want other people to read your blog, you have to blog about things your readers are interested in, and not talk all about you. Hm. The thing is, I don't quite know who reads this anymore, what they're interested in, and what I could say about the things they're interested in.
It also said that people don't like poorly-written blogs. Or, even if it's interestingly written, poor grammar and spelling deters readership. I don't think I have that problem. I can't stand typos.
Another is the music players set on auto-play. I can sort of understand that. They do sort of freak me out when I don't realize the volume's all the way up, and Skillet starts playing! I like it when they have them at the top of the page, and 'start it yourself.' But I still read those, I just make sure to have the speakers turned down at first, or scroll to the music box really quick and stop it.

I think the next post I do will be a very opinionated review of Disney's latest movie, Lemonade Mouth. It's stupidish. But, I won't tell about it here--rants were probably frowned upon in that article as well. And it would deprive me of an idea for my 226th post.

~Kiwi~

A few of my most recent favorite videos

Odd mix of videos here! I've got a music video from The City Harmonic, and then *SPOILER ALERT!!* several from Tangled. If you haven't seen Tangled yet, you may not want to watch  them. They're from some of the best scenes. Enoy! =)

Ho-Hum. I'm behind my posting schedule on here, and my poor Old Movie Blog hasn't been visited by me in months! That and my posts on here apparently have not been the most interesting.
I hope you find this one more to your liking, and voice your opinion of it. I shall tell about a couple of mini-parties I've had, then at the end I shall tell a deep, dark secret.
But you have to read the entire post, don't just skip to the end!

A couple of weeks ago I had my dear friend Reba (Queen Lucy, please don't mention to her the fact that I called her "Reba." She may not like it much...) here for a sleepover, and it was one of the best times I've had in a while! We watched some old silent movies (Buster Keaton is officially a genius. Some of the effects he used look rather simple now, but at the time these were New and Innovative! No one else had used them yet! And you know how in the '30s, '40s, and '50s, if the people were shown in a car they were actually in front of a movie screen to make it look like they were really driving? Buster Keaton didn't do that! Back in the 'teens and early '20s, even, if he was shown driving he was actually driving the car outside. So admit it. He was pretty much the best silent actor.) watched some silent movies, played FARKLE and UNO, and talked.
One of the highlights was sitting in the kitchen with a candle, a pair of forks, and a bag of marshmallows. C= I've always wanted to roast shmallows over a candle, and now I have. It's a little different because there's so little flame--you have to burn it to get it melted. Oh, and we also roasted apple slices over the candle, too. They weren't spectacular. Just warmed. Kinda boring, really.
Reba left the next morning, but not until we talked more and placed some imaginary bets on the outcome of the Uno Tournament. Now I wish they hadn't been imaginary! (I beat her with me three zeros and one 48. :) Adn now she's in Florida until I-don't-know-when (do you know when they get back, Queen Lucy?), and I can't wait for her to return!

Then the Friday after that, Sis invited three friends over to watch "Arsenic and Old Lace," which is another one of the Best Movies Ever! (Cary Grant was the perfect person for Mortimer, and I loved Teddy and the aunts, and Priscilla Lane was perfect for her part, especially the last scene, and Peter Lorre as Dr. einstein was hilarious, and I loved all the jokes about Jonathan looking like Boris Karlof.) Poor Mr. Hoskins!
In addition to watching the movie, we consumed hundreds of gummy bears and had a deeply scientific discussion on pop, what makes it fizz, what makes it loose or keep its fizz, why raisins act funny in pop, why craisins are even more entertaining in pop, and the chemical make-up of pop. I don't remember even half of what was said & decided on, but it was a half-hour-long-deep-discussion!
That was another highlight of my recent life. =) I like old movies with friends.

And the deep, dark secret I was going to tell you? I like going into (some) caves.



Think about it.

~Kiwi~

Are you tired of watching action movies and not being in on the adventure? Are you tired of watching the hero talk with and tell his suspicions to the bad guy himself? Do you wish you could get in the movie and get rid of the bad guy yourself??
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Well, what are you waiting for? Go out today to your local Action Hero Nerf Gun Supply Shoppe. Action Hero Nerf comes in single shot, six shooter, and machine gun styles. Missile Launch coming soon! Come on down Today!

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Aww....

Aww, I should threaten to leave more often. Got me a lot more attention than I've gotten in quite a while! ;-)

Okay okay okay, I won't leave. I'll stay put for now.

Sooo, what am I doing today? Feeling guilty when reading an interesting book instead of homework, but then feeling miserable doing homework instead of reading my book! Do you ever find yourself in such a predicament? It's a lousy one to be in, I can tell you that! But I chose read the 225 page book instead of 12 pages of Chemistry this morning, and paid for it this afternoon when I had to do the chemistry anyway. =P Making choices stinks!!

The other night I made a movie. A really dumb movie, but I'm going to paste it together on the computer and maybe put it on here. Late nights do something weird to minds, though. Weeeeiiiiirrrddd...
The title (so far) is "World's Greatest Detective vs. The Camel Theif!"

I'll try to stick it up here next week sometime! In the meantime, keep reading, keep commenting, and thanks! :D
~Kiwi~

(I just had to stick this super-cute picture of my second-cousin, Hannah, on here!! We saw her and my cousins and a few aunts & uncles over New Year's.)

My Life--Monday, #2

This past week, my life has been interesting, boring, entertaining, and just plain dull. And everything in between. And so on and so forth, etc.

Wednesday night we had Bible study at a friend's house. It was interesting, although I sometimes have a hard time keeping my mind from going off on something else. (We're watching video-lectures.) And we stuck around for an hour afterwards, talking with friends Jumbo Shrimp and Kirsten and Noah.

Thursday we were bored. I had to slog my way through school, especially my half-hour-turned-hour-and-a-half chemistry lecture. Ugh. As I worked through the rest of my stuff, Mom said to me "You get your work done while I make us some comfort food. When you're done, we can watch a movie." Once I was done, we ate popcorn and no-bake chocolate/peanut butter/oatmeal cookies while watching Ballet Shoes. I enjoyed that movie because it was so true to the book! I thought they'd find a way to morph it, but they didn't. Posy was a bit older than I thought she should be, but other than that.... I'll tell you more about it on my Old Movie Blog sometime soon.
We were supposed to have thunder storms that day, but all my area got was a few feeble rumbles. I like a good thunderstorm during the day. And, since Spring is coming, we ought to get a few of those. :D (Once again I must say...Melikee Spring!)

Friday, Mom and Da Boys had to go out shopping, so she gave Rapunzel and me permission to go to the MALL for the day! :D We decided to invite Short Stuff and another friend to come along, so Rapunzel forced me to wait until noon to call. I did a lot of impatient foot-tapping. At last, we got to go. Short Stuff was picked up at 12:15 and we were off (the other friend couldn't make it)! I already told you all about the mall experience. We decided to see what was upstairs at Sears, just as an excuse to ride the escalators. We found a lovely little sale up there, in which I found my $60-reduced-to-$7.50-dress. Somehow, riding the escalators isn't quite as thrilling as it used to be. Huh.
We also had way over-priced ice cream cones ($2.42 for a little itty-bitty one-scoop cone. But oh-well, we didn't spend anything else, and it was good. :)
I was also thinking 'hallelujah, Sunday's not that far away!' because I hadn't seen Owan in two weeks.

I had a women's Quilting Bible study to go to on Saturday morning. We got instructions for a new quilt block which shall be altered for me due to it's difficulty. My friend Anna is coming over tomorrow afternoon to sew our blocks. I sure hope they go together well! I'll post a picture of my two on Wednesday or Friday. Maybe. If I get around to taking one.

Sunday we went to church. I got to see Owan at long last. Which reminds me: has anyone else (Blueh?) heard anything about In the Hands of God's release date being moved back to Jun 1st? I was listening to 20, The Countdown Magazine, and Jon Rivers said that he thinks ITHOG is being released then. I wish they wouldn't move it back, but if they have to, I guess they have to.

Today I had school. I tried to scan a painting onto Angus to make another card set, but the pale green background was turned to a sickly yellow by the scanner.
We warred more with the squirrel-who-eats-the-woodpecker-suet, and tried mothballs beside the feeder, which (according to Birds and Blooms Magazine) is s'posed to deter the squirrel. *raspberry* It don't. It looked at the mothballs, laughed, and ate the suet. So I threw rocks and sticks at it. (I did, too!) It just looked at me, smirked, and ate more suet. (I could almost swear I saw a little pink tongue come out and go 'Tbtphbpbh!' at me!) The stupid squirrel is so stupid it don't even know it's stupid!!! It's so stupid it doesn't even know when to be scared of something (i.e, a ROCK hurtling at its [empty] little noggin!!!). *raspberry* I'll git 'im eventually, and tack his mangy little pelt to the garage door.
ASPCA, I plead temporary and justifiable insanity. STAY AWAY! This one deserves what ever I do to it!

An' that's what I did today.

Song of the Day: Friday I snuck it past y'all! The line you were supposed to look for was "Every Little Thing" by Hawk Nelson, found here:
"Just about every little thing in the mall caught our attention. Even the ugly, huge-belt-buckle kiosk that was being set up...."
Hee hee hee. I just love sneaking it by. One point for Kiwi!
And, I don't normally put in a song title on weekend posts, but I did yesterday to see if you were looking. You weren't. So I'll give y'all until Wednesday to find yesterday's and today's.

badeebadeebadee, that's all folks!

~Kiwi da Fruit

P.S. Tomorrow's Duncan's birthday! Happy Birthday Duncan!

50TH POST!!!!

I wanted to say something before I forgot it, but am now beginning to think that it's too paltry a post for this honored position. Fifty posts. And since I've been on since Wednesday, June 11th, 2008. That makes fifty posts in 167 days. Averaging .2994 posts per day, about 2.08 per week. While Soul Skittles, for example, manages to churn out a lot more in the same amount of time.

Of course, all that was typed last Wednesday, so now my average has dropped even more. :'( I need to post more.

So, when was the last time I posted? Ah, yes, Saturday, the 22nd. What has happened since then?

Sunday (23): Nuthin. Church, as usual. I can't think of anything else.

Monday (24th): Instead of school, we cleaned some, then went to the library. I got a really stupid book that had a deceiving cover. It's called In the Shadow of the Ark, and it's about this girl, Re Jana, who travels to where Noah is building the ark. She falls in love with Ham (That sounds so funny. "Oh, I'm in love with Ham! *sigh*"), who loves her back, but he has to marry this other lady, Neeleta, because of her financial status. Re Jana's mother dies (actually, she knows she's dieing so she has her husband burn her alive to get it over with), so Re Jana's father builds her a reed gondola, as is their people's custom because they used to live by the sea and put the dead bodies in the gondola, then set fire to it and let it float out. But the mother refuses to be put in the gondola, so it just stays there. Then, after a whole lotta stuff happens, the flood starts, Re Jana's adopted brother, Put, is secreted onto the ark by Neeleta, and Ham sneaks Re Jana on, also. So long, complicated story short, Japheth's wife finds Re Jana and forces her to sacrifice some of the animals (including Noah's dove) to the old gods, hoping that then the waters will go down. No one notices that half the quail are missing, or some of the other birds. And then, it ends up that Re Jana, Put, and even their father (who floated in the gondola all that time) survive, even though they were not the Chosen People. It didn't make any sense to me, and I don't recommend it.

Tuesday (25th): Ummmmm... I made the scalloped corn for Thanksgiving dinner and stuck it in the freezer. I also discovered that I hate this kitchen. It's nice and large, yes, but the cabinets come down too low, and the counter isn't wide enough. And there's no counter next to the stove (that fact will play a role in my next adventure), so I had to keep scooting back and forth between the counter and the stove.

For supper, Mom made 'Cheesy Ham Potatoes'. The pan was sitting on the stove with a dish of corn beside it, and I was dishing up my food with my plate in one hand and the spoon in the other. Suddenly, the pan decided to scoot, and it burned my hand! Thankfully, Mom saw right away and was able to move it quickly. If there had been a counter by the stove, I could have set my plate down and avoided that mishap. >:-[

Wednesday (26th): I made a Cherry Pie for Thanksgiving. We went to our church's Thanksgiving Eve service. Oh, and I finished Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas card. Here's the front:

It's actually a bit brighter than it appears to be here. Inside, in the same font and color as the 'peace', is 'Peace on earth and goodwill to men.' That earned me $20, minus the $3.50 Mom and Dad charged me for paper and ink. $16.50. Sweet.

Thursday (Thanksgiving, the 27th): We drove three hours back to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Iowa for Thanksgiving. I LOVE the smell of turkey! And I love Thanksgiving meals. And we had PIE, four kinds of it. Cherry, Pumpkin, Apple, and Pecan. I'm sorely tempted to re-post my PIE post, but instead I'll just put that link up.

We watched about six and a half hours of Newhart. WGN was playing a marathon of it. I like Newhart! My sister said that afterwards, I was starting to sound like Stephanie! I think that's bad....

Friday (28th): We left Grandma and Grandpa's house after lunch, and stopped by Borders book store so Rapunzel could get a book. I had hoped to run into a friend or two there, but nope. Then, Dad drove until we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois, and then he pulled over and (here's the good part) they let me drive!!! It went well. I had to pass a tractor *shiver* and only one person passed me. I need to work on my turns a bit more, because the other two drivers in the car who kept telling me what to do and distracting me, so I couldn't concentrate. I will name no names, but they're my parents. I like driving. :) I drove all the way from the Iowa/Illinois border to an unnamed little town near the Illinois/Cheeseland border--about two hours of driving. :) Driving is fun.

Saturday (29th): We carried, dragged, lugged, and hauled boxes into the basement from the garage. Big whoop. Quite entertaining.

After lunch, TOO (my new nickname for my twelve-year-old brother. The Odd One.) informed me that some friends had been walking by on the street behind the empty lot behind our house, and invited us to go explore the woods by the park with them. TOO left about five minutes before I could, and it was agreed that we'd meet at the park. I arrived, but no TOO, no friends, nobody. Long story short, they weren't at the friends' house, where I checked next, so I went back to the park and found them then. While we were back in the woods, we started construction on a 'fort' or 'hideout' or whatever you want to call it. I think I'll suggest calling it 'The Stronghold' or 'The Keep' (the safest part of a castle) instead of 'The Fort'. The Fort sounds more like some little hideout a kid would build, while The Stronghold sounds better to me. It's sort of a hexagonal structure. Starting at the west corner and going counter-clockwise, it's pine tree, tall-skinny-unknown tree, tall-skinny-unknown tree, pine tree again, another unknown forked tree, another unknown forked tree, then back to the first pine tree.

Sunday (30th): I woke up around seven-thirty and it was unnaturally dark. Looking out my window, I found the problem. Snow. Probably about an inch and a half? I don't know. Then while we were in church, it all melted. It was snowing hard most of the way through the service but not sticking. Then we came home, ate, cleaned, and a new friend (who just happens to live about five minutes away) came over and we watched Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in The Road to Morocco. We were going to watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but that VHS tape wouldn't work. The library needs to start replacing VHSs with DVDs. We made hot chocolate (hint: add dried coffee creamer to the chocolate mix. Hazelnut is good. Or, if you put milk in it also, replace some of the milk with coffee creamer. It makes it even better.), and as we watched the movie about three inches of snow fell.

Monday (1st): I did my school work, which involved watching Amazing Grace for history. I really like that movie! We saw it in the theater either the day it came out, or soon after.

I finished a scarf I have been knitting since late October. It's taller than Monkey by quite a bit, and almost as tall as TOO, who's just over five feet. It's long enough for me to wrap around my neck twice and above my eyes 1 1/2 times! Sort of like the scarf Randy Parker's mom put on him in A Christmas Story. Then, we called up our friends and went out into the woods again. You would not believe (okay, maybe some of you would....Dagmar and Matt) how different the woods look when they're covered in snow! Two of the pine trees we had used as landmarks were unrecognizable, as they were bent over with snow--all the way over! We got more work done on the Stronghold. Saw deer tracks. Heard voices in the woods. Saw strange footprints in the snow. Heard something that sounded like a cross between yip-yap dogs, birds, and a group of wild indians. Picked up two trees. (they're about twelve-twenty feet in length, and they're the tall, skinny ones without many branches. The trees fall over, sit there on the ground for who knows how long, then we pick them up and prop them against things.) So far, all the walls have framework, now what we need to do is weave other sticks in with the big branches and logs.

Tuesday (today, 2nd): I finished my work quickly, except my STUPID LITERATURE where they ask me DUMB QUESTIONS that I don't have answers for. Dad gave us ice cream after lunch. I started serious work on our Christmas card for the year. No picture of that yet, not until it has already been sent out.

I'm planning on going tramping again today. There's not really much else to do. Read, computer, television, paint, wait impatiently for the Fourteenth of December. I need more exercise. Oh, that's something to do! I'll look up the My-ville ice skating arena and see when they let us mortals who are not prodigies at skating in. Perchance after Christmas we can go skating.

Now, I have a tag to do, but I'm going to save that until tomorrow. If I post it now, I won't have anything to post tomorrow, will I?

Goodbye. I'll try not to freeze.

~Kiwi da Fruit

P.S. I sat down and figured out that I have only recieved ummm.... three letters here at this address. I have about ten friends who promised they would write to me, and still have not. It makes me very unhappy, very unhappy indeed. Please write to me, Dagmar, Avalon, Catfreak, Miranda, Abbie, Rachel, Avalonandcatfreakssisters! I miss you! Write soon!!

By der way, Thanks for the comment, Rachel!