The Christmas tree for your computer - or yourself if you spend most of your time sitting in front of the computer. This bright little tree can plug into one of the USB ports on your computer and it will light up and change colours.

When I think about Christmas it is the Christmas tree, all lit up, which comes into my mind first. I love the bright colours, the sparkling ornaments, the smell of everything around the tree as people tended to gather there. We had our tree set up in the front room. Usually, this was the forbidden room. In a house with four children the front room was the fancy room, no kids allowed. But, when it came to family holidays we gathered there, with the fireplace in winter.

We would make so many goodies: pumpkin pie, apple pie, gingerbread, sugar cookies and have them all out there with the tree and the fireplace. My Grandparents (and some of their siblings too) would bring boxes of chocolates and candy canes too. We turned down the electric lights so most of the light came from the colourful lights on the Christmas tree. In the room people chatted, played cards and other games. I can remember the smell of gingerbread, the sound of people and the glow of the tree.

We had an artificial tree because my brother was allergic to the real trees. I never missed the real tree. No pine smell but no dry tree, shedding pine needles either. Plus, we had the same tree each year. Bringing it out was like having a friend come back again each year.

Now, so many years later, most of the family is gone or living far apart in one way or another. I don't mind being alone at Christmas. I have had the kind of family Christmases which people make movies about, so there are a lot of great memories I can look back to. Mainly, I love getting out there and seeing lights and decorations and displays at other houses, other places and being put up and taken down again by other people. I can have my own little Christmas and make it as big or little as I want. I had all my Christmas training. I can now bake the pies, cook the dinner, put up the decorations and enjoy the holiday season in the glow of my own Christmas tree.

Having a little tree just for the computer is a great touch. I can bring Christmas to my desk and have the big tree in the other room too. Every room can have a tree all lit up!

It's the 40th anniversary of The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. The book was first published in 1973.

Have you read the book? Or just seen the movie? I've seen the movie a few times. Each time I find something I didn't notice earlier or I remember parts I had forgotten. I laugh, I cry and I wish there were more! It's rare to find a movie you really can bring the whole family to see - and enjoy.

Did you know S. Morgenstern, is the fictional author of The Princess Bride? If you read the book William Goldman, the author, claims to have the story from S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. Also, the author says you can get extra pages of the story (which he added to Morgenstern's original story) about the reunion between Buttercup and Westley. If you do write to the publisher and ask for the extra pages they have a form letter which they send back telling you their lawyers will not let them send out the extra pages for legal reasons.

I did read the original book version, before the book was made into a movie in 1987. Seeing the story as larger than life on the big screen at the movie theatre was wonderful. I loved the book - definitely one of those hard to put down books.

William Goldman has alluded to a sequel, Buttercup's Baby. Westley and Buttercup have a daughter, Waverly. A madman throws Waverly off a mountain but Fezzik (who was babysitting) jumps to his doom to save her. But, if there is more, it's not in print for public reading. William Goldman says he has not found the same lucky inspiration which he found for The Princess Bride. (It began as a story for his daughters, one wanted a story about a bride, the other wanted a story about a princess).

Making Campfire Coffee

Use coarse ground coffee rather than fine.

Use 2 heaping tablespoons of coffee for each cup you want to make. Then add the water for the same amount of cups. You may want to add a little extra water if you find the coffee too strong the first time you try it.

Place the pot over heat and slowly bring it to the boil. Once it boils take it off the heat and let it steep for about 5 minutes. Add a bit of cold water which will cause the coffee grounds to settle and then serve the coffee.

Egg Coffee

Egg coffee is another slant on the idea of Campfire Coffee.

Bring 10 cups of water in a kettle to a boil. While you wait for the water to boil... In a bowl, combine 1\2 cup of coffee grounds, 1 egg and 1/4 cup water. Add this egg and coffee mixture to the 10 cups of water once it has boiled. Keep it on the boil for 2 or 3 minutes longer. Then remove it from the heat and add 1 cup of cold water. (This helps settle the coffee grounds to the bottom of the kettle) Serve the coffee hot.

There are going to be times in your life when you want to make coffee but you don't have a coffee maker. I've had this happen when I'm travelling or moving to a new home. A few times I've had to use my own ingenuity to brew coffee in my own unique way.

The simplest way to make coffee when you don't have a percolator, French press or other type of coffee making gadget is to design your own French press.

You will need a kettle or some method to boil your water. Then something to filter out the coffee grounds once you have left the ground coffee steeping in the boiled water for about 5 minutes. I've heard people use an assortment of ideas to strain/ filter out the coffee grounds.

One method was a (clean) sock. Another idea was to use a paper coffee filter - set it as a lining in the same strainer you use when making spaghetti noodles. You can also use a funnel, place the coffee filter inside and pour the water over the grounds slowly.

If you pour water over a coffee filter too quickly there is a good chance you will create a hole in the filter and spoil the effort of trying to filter the coffee grounds.

If the only thing you can find to make your coffee is the pot you boil the water in, you can still make coffee. Just use the pot lid to hold back the coffee grounds and pour the coffee into your cup, carefully. You may get a few grounds but they tend to sink to the bottom of your cup anyway.

Best of all is to be prepared with a cone filter made of wire mesh. You can use this over and over and just rinse out the ground each time.

You can have a virtual pet shark. You can have an inflatable pet shark which swims along in the air. You can have a pet robot shark which swims in water too. Or, you can own an exotic pet and set up a real aquarium with real, living, sharks. Of course, only the very big aquariums in zoos and other displays for the public or inside a corporate office with an unlimited budget, will have large sharks. However, a large shark isn't really a pet. An animal that could eat it's owner (due to a lack of inhibitions or respect for our place in the food chain) is not a pet. Not really.

A nice thing about keeping a pet shark, or several of them, is just watching them swim around. Some how it is very relaxing (almost like meditating) to watch fish swim around. They don't seem to be doing much. It's all fairly repetitive. If you keep a pet shark all they can really do is swim circles around whatever space they have. Swimming laps over and over and over. It must be an awfully dull life for them.

I don't like seeing the small sharks for sale in pet stores. I wonder how many of them die before they are sold to anyone. I'm sure the pet store just keep them to attract shoppers on the weekends they schedule feeding time for the shark(s).

I don't really think sharks should be pets, kept in a tank of water. I don't think any tank is really big enough - unless it's massive enough to create a whole marine or ocean type of environment. There is something ugly about seeing a shark bump into the side of a glass fish tank. So, I'm only keeping the virtual shark pet. Virtual shark pets miss you when you travel and will be there when you get back, still alive (or you can just restart your game).

Long, long ago in a land not so far away... four children came together at the dining room table in the dining room of their home. The eldest became known as the Dungeon Master. The other three children were players of the game of Dungeons and Dragons.

The players learned to follow a map and figure out directions. They even brought a compass into the game so they could orient themselves with the directions needed to follow the dungeon created by the Dungeon Master. As they developed their skills they became better at avoiding traps, solving riddles and finding their way to the hidden treasures.

The Dungeon Master also picked up new skills and enjoyed causing confusion, building even more twisted dungeons and bringing the players into a special maze with a treasure they never did quite manage to find.

The four children were myself and my brother and sisters.

I loved being the Dungeon Master! We started playing with my Dad as the Dungeon Master but he didn't have patience to stick with the game and yet he had endless patience when it came to stopping the game to read every last rule for the game. Eventually we had the game to ourselves and enjoyed the spirit of the game more than being good rule-abiding Dungeon and Dragon players and characters.

I wish I still had a group to play Dungeons and Dragons with. My nephew, Zack, plays with a group of his high school friends. But, now they are all in the first year of university and will have a harder time getting together in one place at the same time. I hope they can keep their game going.

The only downfall for the game of Dungeons and Dragons is that you really do need the same group of people each time you play. It's not so easy to bring in new characters and adapt old characters to merge with the game as it is with the ongoing characters in the game.

Now you can get the new editions of the Dungeons and Dragons game, rules and equipment.

Later I did find more Dungeon and Dragon sets, rulebooks, manuals and guides but my brother and sisters and I had long grown up, moved away from each other and now we are more likely to play card games when we get together. But, I still love D & D and I've kept all the books, game parts and even some of my old map creations.

I hate anyone saying they are bored. To me it just means they aren't putting in enough real effort into what they are doing - or making the most of what they could be doing. Dungeons and Dragons took a lot of effort, planning and even real skills (like map reading and map making). Anyone who claims to be bored with playing D&D has likely dumbed it down and lost interest.