10 Random Facts Which Are, In Fact, About Me

So, Blog, at the kind invitation of my friend Tameri Etherton, today I am participating in a Ten Random Facts About Me blog thingy. I would have been happy to post Ten Random Facts about You, Blog, if the list was that long. But really, there's not too much we know about you except:

1. You are a disembodied anthropomophized being.

2. You are gender-neutral with a masculine vibe.

3. You occasionally like to interview other anthropomophized beings like our cookie jar, Professor Snowcaps.

And that's about it.

So while I may not be as fascinating as, say, Ashton Kutcher or one of those Jersey Shore peeps, at least we can come up with Ten Random Facts about me, Blog. So tally ho!

1. I can do ecclesiasical embroidery.

2. From 1998 to 2002 I published a weekly ezine called "Hockey Snacks." (Remember those? Today we call it blogging.) It consisted of original humor about the NHL and was hosted by Shinny, aka my right index finger wearing a miniature goalie mask.

3. When I was in the fourth grade I wrote and directed a musical puppet show called "Soggy Wheat." I am truly not making this up...it made sense at the time.

4. When I was in my 30s I taught myself a couple years of piano and composed a theme-and-variations piece for pipe organ which was performed publically (although not by me, because I didn't know how to play the pipe organ).

5. My first celebrity crush was on Michael Rennie as Klaatu in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." That movie was made in 1951 so that gives you a hint how ancient I am. My latest celebrity crush is Christian Kane who plays Eliot Spencer on "Leverage." The only thing they have in common is the ability to kill people at will. I can only speculate on the psychology happening here.

6. I maintain a biligual biographical website about the French Canadian hockey star Guy Carbonneau, which is currently at 316 pages of material. I've talked about it on Quebec radio and TV, in French, even though I am terrible at speaking French and was terrified.

7. I love to make things. The smallest thing I have ever made--it was out of polymer clay--is the blue bird from Angry Birds. For scale, this is my cat Selke with all the Angry Birds.

8. When I was in junior high I mixed cream cheese with green food coloring, made it into balls dusted with cracker crumbs, called them "Moon Marbles" and brought them to my social studies class (which also made sense at the time...sort of). Everyone agreed they were disgusting.

9. When my husband and I were first dating, we invented a sort of death-metal rock band called "Ham Carving." We thought up all the members and their histories, the names of their albums, song lyrics, etc. It was a poor man's Spinal Tap, but we liked our band.

10. I am pretty obsessed with LOL cats and cat videos. Okay, totally obsessed to the point of pathology. I have not succeeded in making a funny cat video of my own yet but I did make this just sort of nice one.

And that, Blog and dear readers, is as the kids say "all I got." Again, I never promised you Ashton Kutcher...and thanks for reading.

Amazon, wtf were you thinking?

Blog, seeing as I have had a continuingly nightmarish week, I am happy to hand over the reigns today and let you have a turn at running the show. So feel free to vent about whatever is on your mind.

Thanks, Diana--I appreciate your handing over the blog to my non-corporeal control. Because I do want to vent about something, and that’s the fact that we now have pretty reliable proof that you were right all along about the peeps at Amazon being crazy. Referencing what they did about ebooks. I may be merely an extension of your psyche and therefore imaginary (with a masculine vibe, of course), but I agree with you it was nuts.

Here’s the deal, readers. Most of you probably remember the launch of the Kindle, Amazon’s proprietary ereader. You may even have been in on the commentary about how unattractive the device was (“bad 80s design” was more or less the consensus). I don’t so much care about that, not being exactly a looker myself. (Like most non-corporeal being, I don’t look like anything.)

What I don’t like is the stuff about which you may not be aware. Which is that Amazon was determined to take over the whole world of ebooks. First--and it was like a year and a half before the Kindle was released--they stopped selling the hundreds of thousands of pdf and lit format ebooks they had offered readers for years. Just took them all off the site. Then they made the Kindle so it would only read one format of ebook: the Kindle format. Authors had to get their books in Kindle format if they wanted them offered to readers. And if readers wanted to read them, they had to shell out $400 for a Kindle device.

At the time this struck us (well, it struck Diana, seeing as I was not yet even an imaginary entity at that time) as just un-American. Sure, in the course of free enterprise, companies strive for market share. But when they strive for monopolies, that crosses a line. Without competition, there’s no innovation. And also, no disincentive to high prices like that $400 tag on the Kindle.

Meanwhile, it really sucked in another way. Diana’s ebooks, particularly her first collection of erotic romance stories, Soulful Sex, were really selling well. That book was far and away her bestseller, and in fact was in the top ten ebook romances for over 18 months. Then one day: gone. Just so Amazon could try take over the market.

And the thing was, Amazon was making money from all those hundreds of thousands of ebooks. They took a huge loss when they abolished them all. Not only un-American, but pretty dumb business-wise.

So, Diana’s books are out for Kindle now as well, and they have been selling okay but certainly not like back in the good old days. Anyone can read a pdf or lit ebook via free software, on their computer or smart phone or certain ereaders. Only people willing to shell out the big bucks for a Kindle can read a Kindle book.

A couple years later, being last fall, Barnes & Noble launched their own ebook program. But B&N’s approach has been carried out in pretty much just the fashion Diana and I would have done it. They have a nice looking device called the Nook, priced at $259 (which, by the way, is the current price of the Kindle--wow, competition works like I said!).  But meanwhile, the software to read Nook books is free and works on other devices like PCs, Macs and smartphones. Do you know what this means? Anyone can buy and read Nook books!

And I’m here today to tell you a very interesting fact: A few months after the launch of Diana’s Nook books, they are already selling at the same rate as they did in their heyday on pre-Kindle Amazon. Imagine that. All those sales could have stayed with Amazon over the years, but they’ve lost them to Barnes & Noble.

And even more interesting: Diana’s print book sales have also shifted over in B&N’s favor! That’s really amazing.

Personally, I feel quite vindicated, and I’m guessing Diana does too. A little greed is a good thing, as it motivates good results like quality products, dedicated customer service, reasonable pricing, etc. But too much greed backfires in the end and really gets you bad press.

Like this press.

Sure, we still shop at Amazon. It so often has the best prices around, and no use biting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Still, product and prices being equal, we are going to shop elsewhere.

And on a more positive note, major kudos (SALUTE! “Major Kudos!”) to Barnes & Noble for doing ebooks right. And if you want to try out a good Nook book and you enjoy spicy romance, right now you can get Diana’s bestseller Soulful Sex for only $1.68 here. Sweet.

This is Blog, signing off from the soapbox! Diana will be back for ya, next entry.

Blog interviews my car

[Dear Blog, thanks for giving me the day off!]

Blog: Today we’re delighted to welcome Diana’s car, the irrepressible 2007 Chevy Cobalt known as Racer Y. How’s it hanging, Y?

Y: I got a bath last week, so my world is rockin’, dude! What’s irrepressible mean?

Blog: Um--spunky.

Y: Well, how can you be yellow and not be spunkiest thing since Alyson Hannigan? I’m solid spunky, Blog.

Blog: Indeed. So I take it the “Y” in your name stands for yellow then?

Y: Yep it do. Like Racer X only Racer Y.

Blog: Seems to emphasize your sportiness. True?

Y: Hells to the yeah! Look, I’ve even got a spoiler! Dig it.

Blog: So you do. And a lot under the hood then?

Y: Yaaa--not so much, actually, just 145 HP, 2.2 liters. The SS coupes have 2.4’s and get 171 HP, but Diana didn’t want to go that way.

Blog: She’s cheap AND practical, that one.

Y: Yuh-huh. But the spoiler, dude! The spoiler! And I’m yellow!

Blog: Yellow is sporty as well as spunky, yes. You know, Y...my virtual eyes are drawn to your rear end, and--

Y: Wait a sec, I thought you were a dude! Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Blog: I’m gender-neutral with a masculine vibe, actually. But back to talking about you. I couldn’t help but notice your stylish taillights. Let’s get a close-up on those, shall we?

Y: Wow, you have a cinematographer and everything?

Blog: We have Photoshop.

Y: Oh. Yeah, my taillights. The Practical One went off type there; she had to go with a coupe to get those. She gave up two extra doors for these Corvette-style taillights. Rad, aren’t they?

Blog: Rad indeed.

Y: From the rear, you can barely tell me from a ‘Vette.

Blog: Um. Right.

Y: No, seriously! Diana tells me that all the time!

Blog: Oh, I have no doubt of that. And the vanity plates? “SZ TINY”?

Y: Size tiny. Inherited from the Neon. Describes Diana... she’s 5’2”.

Blog: Well, it does describe you, too, Y--you are a compact car.

Y: And proud of it, buddy! Like a ‘Vette in miniature!!!

Blog: Well of course! So...what else do you have going for you, ride-wise, my friend?

Y: Besides all the traditional perks of the Cobalt, of which I assure you there are like bazillions, I have a radical sound system. Sweet Pioneer speakers and XM radio. It’s always a party inside this guy, Blog. You should see us rock out to the Saturday Night Safety Dance on XM 8!

Blog: I bet it gets pretty wild in there, especially when she’s listening to stuff like “Climb Every Mountain” on the Broadway channel.

Y: Dude, we’ve rocked HARD to that song.

Blog: Harder than anyone ever, I’m sure. But what are you up to these days? Planning any road trips?

Y: Well, I just got involved with this great group called “Everyone Should Own a Yellow Car.” ESOYC.

Blog: Great acronym.

Y: And like EDVIPR is any better?

Blog: Touche. So tell us about that.

Y: Just trying to spread the word that yellow cars are the best. Three reasons I’ll give ya, out of the bazillion reasons: One, they look freakin’ AWESOME. Two, they cheer people up on the freeway. And three, they’re so damn easy to spot in the parking lot of the mall. Am I right?

Blog: You are right.

Y: All those lame-o gray and black and silver and blue cars, what a snooze. Even the red ones don’t pop like me and my sunny compadres, dude. And we won’t rest till everyone wakes up and gets themselves yellow cars! Imagine the better world, Blog!

Blog: I’m imagining how hard it would be to spot you if every vehicle at Southridge Mall were yellow, Y.

Y: Well, yeah, I guess.

Blog: Didn’t mean to squash your joie de vivre.

Y: Well, some would be lemon yellow, and some more the color of bananas!

Blog: And some like butter?

Y: Duuuude...all yellow cars are like buddah. HOLLA!

Blog: Go out on a high note, Y.

Y: Yup, I’m gone! Catch you on the flip, buddy!

Blog: Again, our thanks to Racer Y, Diana’s car, for taking the time to share the yellow car gospel with us today! Any readers with yellow cars, represent in the comments....