Grazing Press=

Go this link:

Here for the next month you can read American Gods by Neil Gaiman courtesy of the author himself. He ran a survey on his blog as to which books his fans would like to see posted free on-line.

I voted for Neverwhere, but his more popular novel won. I liked it too, so everyone’s a winner.

-30-

You will see occasional links to books on these pages that will take to Amazon.com.  These links, if followed from here and purchase made allegedly will add change to my pocket. 
Never a penny.
I did set this program up for a not for profit web site where they have made a few hundred dollars having their members, all of whom are avid readers, make their orders through them.
Now Amazon.com is selling baby strollers and car seats. This is a 20% off sale on the Britax brand until March 2nd. 
I must admit I have never heard of this brand and my youngest is now taller than I.  
We do, however, buy loose tea from them on subscription. 
This allows for a major discount and free delivery of something I would’ve bought anyway.
Will baby strollers and car seats make me rich?
I think not.

The IHT blog list of its local color journalists is proving to be a relaxing read.  No heavy world crisis or political news.  It just tells you what is interesting about a place.  It is written by people who live there.

It did come to light for me a dozen or so years ago that the only way a native gets to know what is fun to visit in their native town is by showing people around who are not from there.  There have been many fascinating places in the cities wherein I have settled over the years.  It took a visitor for me to have reason or even the energy go there.

The rest of the time we just stand around waiting for things to happen. 

That may sound strange, to take Sunday off, but after a very long week we have canceled all social obligations for the day.  I am sitting here in the home office, listening to Ingrid Michealson’s The Way I Am to be followed by Stacy Kent singing Stardust. 

These songs came about with my discovery of Amazon.com’s music download.  iTunes was just too complicated for me.  I am listening to the music on my laptop with the GPL Licensed  VLC cross platform media player.  It is the simplicity the interface to this programs full set of features that appeals to me.

Mark Knophler’s Coyote (Album Version) just started playing.

This could go on all afternoon, but I would rather just chill, thank you…

-30-

…Stacy Kent is now singing I Got it Bad…

The tiny spell utility has been added to my laptop.  I already have two spell checkers, but I figure, could it hurt to have another?  Will they counter act each other, or show each other support. I am writing in Q10 now.

New boxes are popping up when I type words that are not in the tinySpell dictionary.

Will this be a war of spell-checkers or will it be peace and harmony on the writing screen.  Stay tune.
-30-

We are making some design changes early on Tuesday morning.  You may not be able to gain access to the site from 24 to 72 hours after midnight.

Meanwhile, go to Grazing Portal to keep up to date with the latest entries.

-30-

It was in something I read on the Internet that said chewing gum made you smarter.  I am not so sure about that.  I rarely chew gum but a piece was offered to me during Coffee Hour this morning and impulsively I took it.  Normally, when people offer gum or a mint at a social gathering it means your breath might be on the brink of acting as a capable paint stripper.

But, as I am still chewing the gum hours later, I believe it has removed my ability to write at all.  Or it could be because of how little I know about Association Football? 

I do know that Manchester City has defeated Manchester United in a soccer game in the not too distant past.  I do know that is like the New Jersey Giants defeating the New England Patriots.  I do know that my friend, a new citizen of these United States, is a die hard Man City fan.  That’s all I need to know to be able to say: Congratulations Man City!!!
-30-

On his blog this morning Neil Gaiman put up a poll that asks which of a list of his books would we give to a friend so as to introduce the friend to Gaiman books.  If you look at the poll, as of now, American Gods is way ahead. 

I voted for Neverwhere. 

This is partly because Neverwhere was the first of his books that I read, leading me out into the world to find the rest of his work to consumes ravenously.  

Also, I believe American Gods, though his best novel, may be a little on the strong side as an introduction to Neil Gaiman’s work.

Conversely, had my first exposure to him been one of his outstanding illustrated novels, I might never had gone on to read his novels and short stories.  Quien Sabe, amigo!
Now it is time for my morning muffin, sorry, meditation….
-30-

Using the Firefox Extension, Read-it-later, I was able this morning to hold for later viewing all of the links below while browsing through  the Google Reader .

What assisted me in copying these links I as perused them in Firefox clicking on the Read-it-later and the Read-it icons was the newest note taking utility added to the laptop, Quicknote.  Quicknote was praised  in an earlier blog entry.

The Read-it-later extension is not only for Google Reader.  It copies to its bookmark any link you may encounter while browsing.  Therefore, one or two of the links below may have come from browsing places like Technorati or commandN, but most come from Google Reader, whither  there are feeds from both of these sites

I have loaded the complete link below the names of the sites instead of embedding them.  This way you can see, before you click on them, exactly where the link is taking you.

Read-It-Later Links

What is Relativity?
http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/080208-relativity.html

Tinker
http://www.tiinker.com/

GMail Skins
http://www.dailybits.com/25-incredible-skins-resources-tools-for-the-gmail-power-user/

WOT For Firefox
http://www.freewarefiles.com/wot-for-firefox_program_39708.html

The Draco Tavern
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786159472/omnivoracious-20

Archbishop Defends Remarks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7236174.stm

Google Map Mashups
http://gmapsmania.googlepages.com/100thingstodowithgooglemapsmashups

Stephen King On Writing
http://www.amazon.com/

First Look at Firefox 3.0
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061212-8409.html

WiFi Sites
http://hotspotr.com/wifi

Photo Enforced
http://www.photoenforced.com/

The Elegant Variation
http://marksarvas.blogs.com/

eHub-Flexadex
http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub/app/flexadex/

Duke of York Trashes US
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7227627.stm

Creative Swearing     (This is very fast but funny)
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-swear-creatively

Configuring GMail Imap in Thunderbird
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77662&topic=12814

Daylife
http://www.daylife.com/

Romney Exits (Herald Tribune)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/08/america/07cndrepubs.php

Dignity Village
http://www.dignityvillage.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28

Smoke at Ansonia
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/second-hand-smoke-at-the-ansonia-prompts-lawsuit/index.html?ex=1360213200&en=39a21bdd98edfe89&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

commandN #121
http://commandn.typepad.com/commandn/2008/02/commandn-121-fe.html

Add Content to Google Maps
http://maps.google.com/ig/directory?synd=mpl&pid=mpl&features=sharedmap%2Cgeofeed&backlink=http%3A%2F%2Fmaps.google.com%2Fmaps%2Fmm%3Fie%3DUTF8%26hl%3Den%26om%3D1%26ll%3D43.301196%2C-80.200195%26spn%3D3.222096%2C6.844482%26z%3D8%26iwloc%3Dmpl0&hl=en&num=24&output=html

Create PDF Magazines
http://www.pdf-mags.com/index.php

Cram Magazine (PDF)
http://www.cram-mag.com/

Daily Dose of Imagery
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/

The Tenant Who Wrote Macbeth
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/books/08book.html?ex=1360126800&en=57b8d88d2cb05eac&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Word and OpenOffice Compatibility
http://lifehacker.com/352676/make-word-and-openoffice-more-compatible

How to Fold a Towel Monkey
http://lifehacker.com/354549/how-to-fold-a-towel-monkey

Digital Camera Reviews
http://www.dpreview.com/

Blogger Buzz
http://buzz.blogger.com/

It should be mentioned that Firefox, though no manipulation of my own, is now back up and running. 

When it activated all of my add-ons, along with their associated websites.  I had to go in and turn off the add-ons not currently in use.  It did surprise me there were so many.  I am a taster.  When I find mention of something that may make the browsing experience more interesting, will try it.  Mostly the reason I turn it off as to do with loading time or its conflict with a already running feature.  I only delete the ones that have an obvious detrimental effect on my set-up.

I wonder if this huge patch, whose pending arrival was all over ZDNet news. (Google Read Feed), was a precursor to Firefox’s version 3.0.

-30-