Unsaid

Incredible! This first, semi-biographical novel by Neil Abramson has me wanting more...more of the kindness. I've read Skip Pritchard's review and Conversation with Neil Abramson and then watched the accompanying YouTube video.

Canadian astronaut coming home

A revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.

Words are worse than sticks and stones

Again, Canadian slam poet, Shane Koyczan has brought his intelligence to the table to highlight the experiences of bullying, from an informed point of view.


To This Day from To This Day on Vimeo.

In addition, here is Shane's TED Talk:



You can also read the text of Shane's spoken art performance at the Vancouver Olympics describing the Canadian experience, called We are More.

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.