Hand Over the Credit Cards Right Now and Nobody Gets Hurt!

Another rude awakening this morning.  Gail took a look at the bank balances — and they didn’t balance.  We all know who — and what — the problem is.  Bill sees something he wants to get… usually related to his website or some way to promote his book.  He whips out the card or logs onto Pay Pal!  Badda Bing!  He does the deal.

The problem is… he FORGETS to MARK IT DOWN, then forgets to put it on the CHECK REGISTER, then forgets about it ALL TOGETHER!

Problem solved.  I gave my card to Gail today.  I closed my Pay Pal account.  (I kept open the one that folks can donate to, but I can’t take the money from it… all I can do is transfer it to my two charities.)

It’s a good thing Gail caught this when she did.  I just can’t be trusted with the finances any more.

This is Why I Love Create Space!

You have lots of choices when you resign to self-publish a book.  For a nice hardcover, you can’t beat Lulu.com — they deliver a very nice product.  Perhaps a tad on the expensive side, but a quality book.

But they’re as SLOW as a Parky in a snow storm!

Now, for a quality paperback, you can’t do better than Create Space.  I decided to print “Put On Your Parky Face” as a paperback.  For one thing, you can get it for a much cheaper price, and we still get a nice donation to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Charles DBS Research Fund at Vanderbilt.  The hardcover is $40.  The paperback is the same size, and it’s $15.  I got my proof copy yesterday, approved it for distribution, and the sonofagun is already on Amazon!   I paid extra for this, as well as for the distribution service at Lulu.  I’m still waiting for the hardcover to show up on Amazon.  And I submitted it weeks ago.   I submitted the paperback yesterday and have sold two copies already.

So, if you want a nice hardcover, don’t mind paying a premium price for it, you’ll enjoy the book available at Lulu.  But if you just want the book to read, and not to last forever on your bookshelf, go with the Create Space version.

Either way, 100 percent of the profits go to the charities mentioned above.

Change Your Facebook Profile Pic and Save the Babies!

In one of the more ludicrous bits of meme-ry I’ve seen in a long time, there’s this thing spreading across Facebook — and people are falling for it.

Change your FB profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal is to not see a human face on FB till Monday, December 6th. Join the fight against child abuse & copy & paste this to your status to invite your friends to do the same 🙂

All of a sudden, people I know and respect have changed their Facebook profile pic to their favorite cartoon character from their childhood, as if someone who is just about to beat a child is going to stop and check his Facebook status first and think, “Aww… look at all the cartoon characters.  I WON’T stub my cigarette out on Timmy’s abdomen!”

UPI has this story on the phenomenon…

Know Your Meme, a Web site base in New York, said the trend began in Greece and Cyprus in mid-November and eventually spread globally, ABC News reported Friday.

The Web site said the meme — a recurring Internet fad — eventually took on the meaning of fighting child abuse, similar to previous awareness campaigns involving women posting their bra colors to raise awareness for breast cancer. However, analysts said it was unclear when the child abuse message was added to the fad.

To me, this is yet another example of our tendency to want to feel good about doing something without having actually done something.  “See!  I don’t like child abuse!  I have a “Bugs Bunny” profile pic.”  Nice.  But what have you DONE to PREVENT child abuse?  Did you donate to a charity?  Did you list your house as a “safe house” where a child and seek refuge from immediate abuse?

There are perfectly good charities that need and deserve your support.  (Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge!) But changing your Facebook profile pic isn’t going to do a damn thing to help anyone… except make yourself feel like you did something, when you in fact did NOTHING.

You wanna do something to help people?  DO something that will HELP people.  This self-satisfying, self-stroking is just self-righteous and silly.