YAY!!

Stuffs (and gift suggestions I suppose)

I'm tweaking my template. It is borked in IE, but what else is new. I've tried everything I know of to fix it. I recommend looking at this site in anything but IE. I'm in Firefox right now and it's beautiful.

In other news, I've added a list of my Favorite Reads from Amazon over there to the left. I can honestly say I've read 90% of the books on my list. And I'm not done adding them. I'm a huge Peter Straub and Nicholas Sparks fan. I also love John Grisham and have a strong like for Stephen King. Something about him skeeves me out just a little. I have read all three of Eleanor Herman's books, well, I'm half way done with Mistress of the Vatican and I cannot wait to read King Peggy. And as you already know, I fell in love with Oogy.

With all this free time on my hands, Santa is bringing me a slew of new books for Christmas. I cannot wait to read You had me at Woof and Santa scored me a first edition, signed copy of Peter Straub's A Dark Matter and it's companion, A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter. He is also bringing me Room, Not Without My Sister, and Damaged.

I should be sufficiently busy until at least May.

Oogy

I read a book last week. It made me cry. How do you look at a face like Oogy's and not want to immediately hug and love it and try with all your might to erase any bad that the poor fella had ever encountered?  That was my immediate reaction to seeing the book.  Once I read it, my feelings were confirmed and my heart was filled with happiness that Oogy found the Levins, who were 100% worthy of his love and affection and who reciprocated it threefold. 

When I first saw this book, I immediately thought of my little brother.  Not because he is a dog, but because when he was one year old he got a severe ear infection. The doctor treated him for an allergy to milk.  By the time he was two years old, the entire side of his face was dead.  It sagged down.  By the time he was six, he had the last of four surgical procedures, where the doctors took a piece of muscle 10 inches long from his thigh and made a sling that connected at his temple and then went down the middle of his cheek and split to go over and under his mouth in an an attempt to get some working muscle in his face.  Before the surgery, he could not close his mouth completely resulting in drinks and food spilling out the side.  His eye also did not stay closed so a gold weight was put into his eyelid in order to keep it closed while he was sleeping. My brother's face still looks like Oogy's. His right side has grown to that of an adult.  The left side not so much.  His bones have grown, but his skin, eye and mouth did not keep up. It doesn't matter to us. We, like the Levins, see past the scars and disfigurement to the unadulterated love that is underneath.

Oogy's story is one of rescue and love.  Used as bait when he was mere weeks old to train  a Pit Bull for fighting, Oogy was ultimately left for dead by his abusers.  Found by authorities during a drug raid, police officers transported Oogy to an emergency veterinarian's office where his wounds were cleaned and bandaged.  The next morning the officer manager saw Oogy and realized he was special and needed more care than he had received.  It was estimated Oogy had been left to die for approximately a week before being found.  He was severely malnourished. The office manager convinced her boss to spend many hours in surgery repairing what could be fixed.  Upon initial examination, even the Vet knew Oogy was special.  He did not wince in pain, although he must have been in severe pain.  He had a great disposition and a love in his eyes.  Several surgeries later, Oogy finally began to heal and gain weight and was fostered in order to be eventually adopted.

Only through the heartbreak of losing one pet did the Levins stumble upon Oogy. Or should I say, Oogy charged the Levin twin boys and showered them with kisses.  Oogy chose them.  Upon convincing his wife that this damaged Pit Bull needed their love and home, Oogy was officially adopted and this book is the story of his life. Oogy it turns out is not a Pit Bull at all.  Half his life, he was prejudiced against because of his looks.  This is the story of overcoming bad things and not allowing them to define who or what you are.  I can relate to this story on a personal level.  With regard to my brother and with my own life.

If you love animals, you will fall in love with Oogy too.  And he even has a Facebook page!

I bought this book for my own personal enjoyment.  This review was not compensated or solicited in any way.
Photo from Oogy's Facebook page.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I am thankful for many things. This treasure included:

Animations provided by MySpaceGraphicsandAnimations.net

Page Rank and why it shouldn't matter

I have been blogging since 2005.  I have learned a lot during that time.  First I learned that to get readers/followers, I need to read/follow others.  Makes sense.

Second I learned that regardless of how much I might visit and comment and follow, if I don't have anything to provide a potential reader, I'm not going to have people come back for seconds or thirds or the current drama that I might be experiencing.  They may not come back to read about how I don't give secret family recipes.

Speaking of drama, the third thing I've learned is that people enjoy a good train wreck as long as they're not involved.  It's like a crash on the freeway.  You don't want to look, but you can't help it.  You might get to see some blood or a limb laying on the freeway.  You have to look.  Just like some people have to become involved in the sugar/corn issue or who is deceptive with baby formula.  Everyone has a cause or issue they feel strongly about.  And sometimes, that prompts some really good blogging.

Fourth, I have learned that blogging has changed.  Way back when blogging was the "in" thing, there were hundreds of blogs I visited.  There were new blogs cropping up every day.  Blogs of housewives and moms and people who just wanted their own little corner of the internets to say what was on their mind.  People blogged about what they made for dinner and how long it took them to clean the kitchen floor.  Now days I find less personal blogs and more bloggers who are wanting their piece of the commercial pie.  And why shouldn't they?  Hell, I have this review blog you're reading right now, as well as a personal blog over there.

I want to do something with my words too.  I hope to make a difference or give an opinion that can be trusted or even just give someone a heads up that Giant Cheetos are super yummy cheestastick and super gross, all at the same time.  I want to try new things and pass on that knowledge. I want to make a name for myself in the internet world too.  Law school isn't cheap yanno. 

I have developed a few relationships with advertisers and a couple non-profits (because I do believe in giving back).  I had a nice gig for some advertising that I lost because suddenly my Google Page Rank took a nose dive.  I don't know why.  I don't understand how or why.  All I know is that my blog and entries have stayed the same, but my rank went south.  This happened on my other commercial blog as well.  I've had that blog and this review blog since early 2007.  I have worked them both the same (this one considerably less than the other).  This blog has more hits and followers than my other blog and yet it has a PR of 1 while the other blog has a PR of 2.  The other blog has paid posts on it and at one point last year, Google yanked my entire PR. I was down to a zero, as if I had just started out new.  A virgin blog.  Except I had something like 750 posts at the time.  My personal blog, that is not indexed by the search engines, that has over 300 members and thousands of page hits per week, it has a PR 3.  And I've had it since 2005.  I don't get it. 

Mostly though, I don't understand why, if Google hasn't updated their page ranker since April of this year, PR people and companies are relying on such an archaic measure of popularity.  While my blog in no way compares to some out there, I certainly have a voice and followers and I can Twitter and Facebook and FanPage with the best of them.  Although I admit I have been slightly preoccupied of late.  That's all about to change however.  Because I want to be something when I grow up.  And while I'm in the process of that, I want to blog and review and have a little fun.  This is me joining a cause. 

To quote Lindsay at Lindsay Socializes, because she said it better than I ever will:

So, it’s time to educate the PR folks out there and remind them that just because I have a Google PR of zero does not make my blog worthless! I am still just as capable of working with your brand or reviewing your product as anyone else! As a matter of fact, let’s all get together and let the PR people know that we, as a blogosphere, do not want to be accepted or rejected based solely on an outdated algorithm. We would much rather be judged solely on our content, our traffic and our readership. If you like our work, then forget about PR and give us a chance!

Well said Lindsay.  Well said.