Premiere of Scars of Shame Documentary

A cartoon my niece made on Facebook with the Bitstrips app for my sister Pam. Caption: Pam can hardly wait to watch Angie's documentary for the first time.

Scars of Shame - Documentary Film Screening

• 20th Annual National Conference on Hair Pulling & Skin Picking Disorders at Renaissance Newark Hotel, New Jersey, USA
• Saturday, April 20, 2013: 8:30 - 10:00 p.m.

The premiere of the first skin picking documentary! In the film, Angela Hartlin, author of Forever Marked: A Dermatillomania Diary, invites us into her world for an intimate portrait of her daily struggles as she deals with skin picking disorder. A brief Q & A will follow the 46-minute film. Parental discretion is advised.

Nekofont cat

At the risk of branding myself forever as a crazy cat lady, I'm the following link where text input will be converted to a cat font: http://nekofont.upat.jp/

Cat:

Our digital footprint

Tori Floyd at The Right Click wrote a humorously, informative article about predictive liking. This article and the supporting PDF chart published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) reveals that that every time you 'LIKE' on Facebook, you are being sorted and categorized.

It's not a real brain stretch to realize that every social network you belong to or search engine you use do the same thing.

It's all about the stats and trends, folks. Marketers and corporations depend on this information. Example: the Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community

Why don't we exercise our digital voices by mindfully indicating what we want?

Just a thought...

20th Annual National Conference on Hair Pulling and Skin Picking Disorders

Angela Hartlin will be speaking at the 20th Annual National Conference on Hair Pulling & Skin Picking Disorders - April 19-21, 2013 | Renaissance Newark Hotel, New Jersey

She will facilitate two sessions at the conference and unveil her documentary film on Saturday, April 20, 2013:

Session 4 - Tickets to Happiness
1:00 to 2:15 p.m.
Finding activities that build self-esteem is vital to helping us feel better about ourselves! In this workshop, kids will choose “tickets” that list various activities that we either like to do or would like to try. Once the tickets are given out, we will paste the tickets onto a piece of paper that will help us remember the things that make us happy, and when we feel stressed or anxious or sad, we can turn to our list for ideas on how to relieve anxiety. This list will also give parents insight into motivations for their children.

Session 6 - Fearing Intimacy
4:15 to 5:30 p.m.
This workshop is for adults 18 and over. Intimacy can be a frightening idea for a sufferer of a Body Focused Repetitive Behavior (BFRB). When the time comes to find a partner, it can be daunting because the sufferer must learn how to be open about their insecurities, be honest about all feelings, and engage inter-personally to help a relationship blossom. In an open forum, we will talk about what it means to be intimate with another person. Intimacy of physical and emotional natures will be the focus of this workshop; having an honest discussion about these feelings many of us are ashamed to have accompanying our BFRBs can help identify specific issues so we can come up with solutions and bring clarity to them.

Scars of Shame - Documentary Film Screening
8:30 - 10:00 p.m.
The premiere of the first skin picking documentary! In the film, Angela Hartlin, author of Forever Marked: A Dermatillomania Diary, invites us into her world for an intimate portrait of her daily struggles as she deals with skin picking disorder. A brief Q & A will follow the 46-minute film. Parental discretion is advised.

The official DVD cover:

Updated: March 21, 2013

Email from the cat

My Basset hound got an email from one of her long-distance pals. Surprising, considering the level of disdain displayed when Bella visited her.

Email

Hi Bella!

Just wanted to let you know you'll feel better & more energetic in a day or two. I went for the same type of operation last month. I'm now able to concentrate more on my playtime, nap time and mealtimes.

Take care,
- MeeMaw


Reply

Dear MeeMaw:

Woof! My servants have tied a horrible cone on my head. It's embarrassing...they will pay!

Ah yes! nap time. I should be able to extend my 18-hour nap to a rounder figure, say 20 - maybe even 22, if my serfs don't pester me too much.

I've got a lot of eating to catch up on. Hopefully tomorrow I can figure out how to get out of this collar and chow down in comfort.

Love,
- Bella

Wayward physics

You'll be able to say TIL (today I learned) at What If? answering your hypothetical questions with physics, every Tuesday. What If? is a subsection of XKCD, a webcomic of romance, sarcasm and language. You might also enjoy XKCD Blag.

Quote: "You can use heat flow to come up with simple rule of thumb: If an unused charger isn't warm to the touch, it’s using less than a penny of electricity a day. For a small smartphone charger, if it’s not warm to the touch, it’s using less than a penny a year."

Ever had one of these days?

Bella, our Basset Hound got spayed today. She's NOT impressed.

Steven Pinker on language

TedTalks: Steven Pinker: What our language habits reveal is an informationally dense talk. You can use the transcript menu option on the bottom, right of the video to read along while listening.

Steven Pinker's bio - Quote, "Linguist Steven Pinker questions the very nature of our thoughts -- the way we use words, how we learn, and how we relate to others. In his best-selling books, he has brought sophisticated language analysis to bear on topics of wide general interest."

Get your Downton Abbey fix

If you are still withdrawing from your Downton Abbey addiction, perhaps these links will help:

Printable quotes from Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham

The Simple Explanation of Downton Abbey

If Downton Abbey took place entirely on Facebook: Season 3

New casting details for Downton Abbey 4th season

Downton Abbey Road

Printable Downton Abbey paper dolls

Downton Abbey Bingo

Downton Abbey Cartoon on Pinterest

Disney's Downton Abbey

The Downside of Downton Abbey

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle

Soft-edge piecing for quilting

Jinny Beyer Studio has beautiful quilting patterns, tutorials, fabrics, notions and tools. She also has a JinnyBeyerStudio channel on YouTube.

I'm particularly enamored by her paisleys in the Renaissance Garden fabric collection and the beautiful technique she uses called soft-edge piecing, which is a perfect way to highlight the beautiful paisleys in quilts.

She has provided a free, downloadable Renaissance Garden quilt pattern and soft-edge piecing instruction sheet. There is also a video tutorial for soft-edge piecing, which you can view below.

What makes us happy?

TEDTalks has created a 7 video series of lecturers discussing the various aspects of happiness.

Quote, "We all want to be happy. But how, exactly, do you go about it? More stuff or less? More choice or less? The answers -- from psychologists, journalists, Buddhist monks -- may surprise you.

What makes us happy?

http://www.ted.com/playlists/4/what_makes_us_happy.html

Free Strathmore art classes 2013

Our body language

Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, shows how "power posing" -- standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don't feel confident -- can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success.



TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.