Keep Plants Instead of Pets

Get plant friendly. Plants don’t destroy clothing or furniture, they don’t bite, drool or bark. You don’t need a bag to pick up their poop if you take them on a walk. You don’t need to take plants to the vet. Plants can smell wonderful. You can eat some of them, if you choose. Plants … Read more

From Fred, the Missing Strange Traveler

The following is cut and pasted from an abandoned site, on Tripod. I would have reposted more newsletters, but I only found two.

Welcome, to The STRANGE TRAVELER

Hi. I’m Fred, the Robin Leach of haunted castles, alien landing fields, mystical monoliths and really cool bars. You have just stumbled into the only travel Website on the Internet that takes a “Twilight Zone” approach to vacation planning.

This is how it works: First, dim the lights.

Stare deeply into your computer screen.

Then imagine you are in the black-and-white world of early 1960s television, sitting in a AAA travel office filled with happy brochures on Disneyland, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.

Suddenly, you realize that the terse, thin-lipped agent marking up your TripTik is actually Rod Serling, host of “The Twilight Zone” and one of modern society’s first supernatural tour guides.

In your head, you hear his clipped, dramatically inflected words offering guidance in your search for vacation ideas that don’t center on theme parks, relatives or all-inclusive resorts:

“You’re traveling through another dimension – a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead. Your next stop …Alton, Illinois.”

Or Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Or Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Paris, Roswell, Loch Ness, the Nazca Plain, Stonehenge, Area 51, The Queen Mary or that spooky old house everyone whispered about in the neighborhood you grew up in.

The Strange Traveler thinks vacations should be more than sunscreen and lengthy discussions about where to eat dinner. Your travel tales should make jaws drop around the office water cooler, and widen the eyes of fellow parents on the T-ball sidelines.

You see, the world is filled with Strange Travel possibilities: destinations reputed to be haunted, cursed, charmed, visited by aliens, inhabited by monsters, worshiped by strange cults, or infested by vampires, faeries and zombies. Some of these places are the doorways to true mysteries. Others are heavily hyped tourist traps. Most have overnight accommodations, lots of local color, and at least one decent bar.

That’s where The Strange Traveler comes in.

This Website and its newsletter are your tour guides to bizarre, out-of-the-way destinations. This e-zine both guides readers to strange places they can visit, and advises them of the supernatural undercurrents flowing beneath traditional getaways.

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It Seems the Bookie Brunch is Over

I disovered the Bookie Brunch while writing a post about book hoarding… I mean keeping, for HubPages.

It seems to be about a year since anything new was added to the Bookie Brunch schedule. But, I liked the ideas. I would like to hear the discussions, literary, bookish and readers talking about books too.

Bookie Brunch on YouTube:

Special project, founded by Sasha Soren (‘Random Magic’). Bookie Brunch is a weekly meet-up, held every Sunday, where book bloggers can have a cup of tea and chat about a particular bookie question of interest. Pull up a chair and feel free to join us! Current series from July 2011 through December 2011. Every Sunday. Feel free to drop by and have a cup of tea and enjoy some good company. Will try to collect all Bookie Brunch videos at the channel, to make it easy to find them, and have separate, special playlist just for BB!

Questions from past Bookie Brunches:

Question: Are books better with or without love triangles?
Related topics: Do you root for a particular character in the love triangle? If so, why? What is your favorite literary love triangle?

Question: Do you prefer e-books or print copies of novels, and why?
Related topics to consider: Do you have a specific e-reader that you prefer? Why did you choose that particular e-reader, did you try any others, and what were your experiences with them?

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53 Links about Cell Phone Photography

I didn’t know about iPhoneography until reading the word on BinaryDad’s Twitter profile. I don’t have a cell phone and haven’t looked into them. One thing I know about myself is the enjoyment of not being entirely connected. I like having that edge of escapism, the hermit in me. So I resist getting a mobile/ … Read more

The Changling Test

Your result for Which Changeling Are You?… The Courtless My mother killed her little son, My father smiled when I was gone, My sister loved me best of all; She buried the family one and all. Once there was a girl, who had no father or mother. All alone in a shack at the end … Read more

Indie Bloggers WC #15: Under All That Fur…

Indie Blogger Weekly Challenge: Not more than 234 words regarding: You and your twin sister are photographers for national geographic on assignment to cover a famous interspecial linguistics professor who’s spent the last 10 years on a mountain in Borneo studying the language of silver back mountain gorillas. You think this is total bullshit and … Read more

The Astrology Thing

It never fails, I know it’s kind of flakey, but I always do an astrology check when I think about dating a guy. So, here is the theory/ check for Wood Dragon (me) and Water Rabbit (him). Likely this will only be the first, be prepared to skim over those too. Wood Dragon The Dragon … Read more

My Bloginality

My Bloginality is ENFP!!! I thought it was a cute idea. I’ve done it before but I think it was something that started with I last time. I’m posting the following here so I can find it when I want to do more than skim it later. If you’re also coming up as an ENFP … Read more