Congratulations to Vicola!

Below is a little bit about her:

I’m Vicola, a proud Northerner from the UK, with very little tolerance and even less patience.

I got started writing an online diary in a rather weird way. My cousin married a conman with a personality disorder, and after wreaking havoc and ‘appropriating’ a chunk of my uncle’s retirement fund, he disappeared, leaving no forwarding address, and no money for his daughter. So, my cousins and I decided to try and find him on the internet – not that…

Look, I write the way I speak. I am no grammar nazi, by any stretch of the imagination, but this stuff really bugs me. I don’t know why, it just DOES:

1. supposebly

It’s “SUPPOSEDLY.” That’s a “D,” not a “B.”

2. I could care less

If you COULD care less, then please, by all means, DO. It’s “I COULDN’T CARE LESS”

3. irregardless

What’s with the “ir” as a prefix? The word is just “REGARDLESS.”

4. “Respectfully,” used instead of “respectively.”

Read the full article »

What makes a writer undoubtedly good? Is it creativity? Is it imagination? Or, is it personal experience? When is it easier for a writer to put thoughts, emotions, and ideas smoothly and effortlessly into valid sentences? Are there any periods in a writer’s life when the act of writing seems like the easiest thing in the world? And what does talent have to do with all of these? Can the urge to write disappear completely, or hibernate for a period longer than the average winter, under a thick layer of ice that blocks it from blossoming?

Read the full article »

See, I don’t hate animals, but I am not an animal lover. As it turns out, I married a woman who does love them and at least two of my children inherited the same peculiarity. This opposing viewpoint has created a lot of memorable events for all of us in our family.

I’ve helped birth goats, pigs, horses, dogs, cats and rabbits, cleaning them cutting their umbilical cords, bottle-feeding them. I’ve performed pet castrations and wiped pet butts.  I’ve trimmed goat hooves until I thought my back would break from bending over and I’ve carried around…

While I was in New York, I was trend-spotting with my friends. One TV show made the top of the list: Gossip Girl, the must-see teen drama on television today. Suddenly, shows like the O.C. and One Tree Hill seem so ‘last century’. Gossip Girl has taken television two steps ahead and after watching last night’s episode, I can tell you that Gossip Girl is going ‘extreme.’ How often do we see a 15 year-old boy being “outed” or hear a 17 year-old girl confess to her best friend that she’d killed someone in her past? For some,…

I have found my own personal white whale in life and it is vegan French toast. A few weeks ago, I began my quest to make the perfect non-animal French toast. It quickly became a quest to make edible non-animal French toast. Now I’d be happy if I could actually make it without having to chew through grease-proof paper.

It all started when I found some recipes for vegan French toast online. It required egg replacer mixed with soy milk as the batter. So I made it and it was great! … As glue. The…

The PMT monster has arrived and once again people are avoiding me. This week has been simply brimming over with help and cooperation from the site management at work. (And again the sarcasm rears its ugly head.) Requests for information have been ignored, stupid requirements have been sent in and the word ‘please’ seems to have been lost from the English language. I am now giving serious thought to fucking it all off and going home for the afternoon to do something less frustrating and annoying like trying to work out how to achieve world peace or cheese-grating…