Damn You To Hell Tootsie Rolls!!!

Four months vegan.

Four months no processed sugar.

Twenty-four pounds lost.

Then...Halloween.

I found myself standing over the damn candy bowl at three o'clock today picking out all of the cherry Tootsie Rolls. After that I moved on to the lime ones. I was like the Miner Forty-Niner on Scooby-Doo...mineminemine!

I think at one point I started actually talking to the candy trying to get it to cough up one more pack of Sprees. I whispered sweet promises that I never intended to fufill if only one more sour apple Tootsie Pop should appear. I caressed it's black plastic purple cats begging for just a few more of those raspberry toffee thingys.

By four o'clock I thought I was about to launch myself into a full blown diabetic self-induced coma. I actually HURT. I went upstairs and laid down with the worst sugar migraine known to man. Why the hell didn't I give out raisins? Overload on raisins and what's the worst that can happen? You walk around the rest of the night trying to get at that little gob stuck to your back molar with your tongue pretty much looking like a tool all evening.

You know, I vote we return this to a pagan holiday, dance naked around a fire, drink a little grog, beat on a drum. Pagans didn't do Tootsie Rolls.

I have to go take six Tylenol now.

Treat, no trick

Here's a tidbit of Halloween fun. You get an hour demo so if you start now you can waste your last hour of work. Happy Halloween!


Mortimer Beckett and the Secret of The Spooky Manor

http://www.funpcgame.com/puzzle-games/Mortimer-beckett-and-the-secret-of-spooky-manor/Mortimer-beckett-and-the-secret-of-spooky-manor-game.php

It's Funny Because Stupid Is Illegal This Time

From the wonderful files of The Smoking Gun comes this little gem. It's ten pages long but WELL worth the read if you have time to pop over to the website and read the entire thing. I've trimmed down the legal docs for you to the ones that are absolutely mind blowing. Here we have a company that thought that it could victimize a young girl, lie about it and no one would know the difference. Lara is to applauded for standing up for herself and hiring a smart attorney. The back of the video box is graphic and you do not want your children seeing it. I put in on here simply to illustrate what her image (at age fourteen) was being used to sell. The NovelChick Staff are not looking to become an HBO 'documentary' subject and we are not moving in the direction of becoming a porn site.

Teen Sues Over XXX-Video "Debut"

British student claims self-portrait hijacked by porn distributors

JULY 31--A British teenager whose self-portrait somehow ended up on the cover of a hardcore video has filed a lawsuit against the film's distributors, claiming that they have left the impression that she is involved in the porno industry. In a copyright lawsuit filed today in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida, Lara Jade Coton, 18, charges that her photo--which was taken when she was just 14--has appeared on the cover of "Body Magic," a 1982 film that was recently reissued. The image of Coton, now a college student, shows her wearing a shoulder-baring dress and a top hat. The photo, which Coton titled "No Way Out," was lifted from her web site by the artist who designed the DVD cover of "Body Magic," which is described on its cover as having received Hustler magazine's "highest rating." The movie's main character is a young fashion photographer named Laura.

The DVD's front and back covers can be found below, while Coton's self-portrait can be seen above. In her lawsuit, Coton recounts contacting one of the film's distributors earlier this year after discovering her image on the porno box. Her request for compensation was brusquely rejected by one of the film's distributors, who wrote, "Nice try toots. We are still going to remove you from the art, not because of your claim but let's face it your picture means very little to the film."

Start reading at the arrow.

Read 24. Can you imagine having some random guy come up to you in college and say, oh aren't you the chick on that hardcore box?

And in paragraph 28 we see that stupid is, in fact, illegal and costly.
I especially enjoyed her attorney's summation of that email.

And in 29 we see that the photo supposedly on a public domain bore a watermark.

I'm guessing that they never suspected this email would be used as court evidence since they used house whole instead of household. That and the generally assy comments which apparently say it's her FAULT the DVD bombed.

Check the date in 31 when she ws allegedly removed from all DVD covers.

According to 38 they continued to use her image even after they knew that she was 14 at the time.

Check the date when her legal team ordered and recieved a copy of the DVD they got from one of the distributors who had allegedly removed it from their inventory in February.

Again, check those dates.

And again....

So aside from boosting the sale of this DVD, we can only hope that this company is charged with child pornography and put out of business.

It was funny, then it was bizarre and now it's just sad

Yes, let's talk Britney Spears just for a moment. I should probably stay away from this subject and just let the fabu Perez Hilton take it but I'm here and I'm talking about it.

Who would have thought six months ago that the general population would be all "Hey, I think Kevin is going to be the best parent?" Especially after his appearance on the wrestling circuit. Not I. It's not that Fed-Ex ever really did anything wrong per say. He just never seemed to do anything. Aside from going forth and being fruitful.

But this year Brit-Brit seems to have replaced Tom Cruise as the winner of the Crazy Is My Bitch award. Okay, I can say post-partum depression combined with divorce stress can contribute to making bizarre decisions like shaving ones head. And if you want to shave your head then by all means go to it since that's a personal choice and it is your hair. But the melt down has just continued and continued and every time we think the train has totally derailed...not. At first it was amusing, the pop princess was out partying and showing off her girly bits by "accident" and just generally being a dumbass (apparently the Paris Hilton Disease is contagious).

Then we realized that if she's off flashing the paparazzi like twenty hours a day where are her kids? And then we got mad. But let's be honest, aren't they better off with a competent nanny?

Well she'll calm down here in a few weeks and go home we thought. Wrong. It's gotten worse. Way, way worse. I'm not talking about the bad weaves, the umbrella incident or the round the clock parties. I mean it's gotten way out of hand, just ask OK magazine or that woman who has a nice dent in her car or well, anyone she's had contact with in the past six months.

So we kept waiting for someone to step in and be all "Hey, Courtney Love called and wants her lifestyle back." And that's when she started firing people right and left. Managers, publicist, agents, body guards, lawyers, assistants, stylist, and her parents. Not that her parents were helping any to begin with but still... Then the Fed-Ex dispute began. And we thought, hey finally a wake-up call. Losing your kids is serious business. But that didn't slow her down either.

Neither did the judge ordering her to get her shit together and stay away from the drugs and alcohol. Neither did two hit and run accidents. Neither did her performance at the MTV Awards (and I have to say she is far from fat, she just made a very BAD costuming choice so shut up about that).

So is she an addict and what to? My hypothesis is this. If you're an alcoholic or a druggie you can stay home and do that. You can drink yourself into a nightly appointment with vomiting or Mr. Nose Candy and there's no one there to photograph it so the judge in your custody case can see it (and let's be honest he has). If you go out and party the same night as the Judge said RANDOM Testing twice weekly, you have a problem.

But what is the problem? My guess? Media addiction. If you have your two kids in the car that you're trying to 'protect' why are you putting your top down (and I mean car top) in the midst of a swarm? Why are you driving with no license? Why are you going out to Starbucks? It's not like she can't afford a driver or a Starbucks flunky. Why go for the notorious underwear swim? Why try and up the tabloid stakes with stunt after stunt? Addiction. Sure probable drug and alcohol abuse are not doing her any good but I think the real problem here is that she needs those flashbulbs, she needs that swarm, she needs that feeling that people still want her.

And I have to say here that when she 'accidentally' drove the wrong way down the one way street with the kids in back it was one of the most heart aching things I've ever seen with the little ones in the back holding hands looking terrified. What's it going to take here? Losing your kids? Terrifying them even as toddlers? Toddlers are smart. They know problems are going on. They know when to be frightened.

Apparently not. A lot of folks think that's rock bottom. It's not. Rock bottom is when you know you have a problem and you can't live with it anymore and ask for help. Rock bottom isn't here yet. And that is a terrifying thought. It's really gut wrenching sad to watch her. No, Kevin probably won't win parent of the year, but at least he's interested in the kids welfare (and yeah I know=money).

And now we have this ridiculous BODYGUARD who was fired and clearly has an axe to grind popping up everywhere. Larry King and the Today show? Be ashamed, really really ashamed of yourselves. Do we really find him credible? A man who is now telling anyone, everyone that the kids were in danger and did NOTHING about it? And then refuses to answer the question why? Obvious not a credible source so he needs to shut up and so does his expensive lawyer/agent. Go away already. And let's not forget Crazy Fan who did the diatribe under a blanket. BTW, did we ever figure out if that was a male or a female?

Any responsible parent at this point would be renting a U-Haul and be putting the pedal to the medal to head for Maine or Oklahoma or Norway that no one cares about them or who they are ( a la Mary Kay Molester whose husband beat a path to Alaska with their kids faster than you could say Restraining Order). But we don't see that either. When do we see someone step in here and truly represent the interest of these poor kids? Where's the child advocate? Where are all these child rights groups? Wouldn't these poor things have been removed from the average home way before this? Is social services on some off site conference in Bolivia?

So is there a rehab for media addiction? I hope so. These kids deserve better than this.

We've been screwed by The Man

Well, okay, we've been screwed by TWOP. I never thought this would happen. I thought it would always be a sacred outlet for astute television watchers, unbiased and free to choose their programming and make fun of it at will. No longer, people! They've sold us out worse than the Bush family. Is nothing sacred? Apparently NOT.

For those of you in the know, TWOP was bought out by the BRAVO channel. Which is part of the NBC crowd along with E, Sci-Fi and USA. I'm sure it owns others but my point deals with these channels directly. Suddenly even the crappiest programs on these channels are getting the royal treatment. I mean who the hell wants to hear a recap of Top Chef or Top Designer? I mean they can't even come up with better names? Then I saw TWOP listed on Top 10 as like number three on their countdown which is generally full of salacious celebrity gossip and other trainwrecks. Number Three? Yeah, I'm sure that was a huge coincidence. And then the absolute unbearable happened. I saw a full blown, voiced over COMMERCIAL for TWOP. A commercial! Why not just take their book to HSN while their at it or do exclusively Bravo shows? Or change the name to Top Website and make it a reality series. Personally I shudder to think they've sunk so low as to throw in with a corporation that has a reality show about a tanning salon. Look, I know reality television is cheap and easy but seriously, a tanning salon? It gives me a headache. So my disappointment is deep and hurtful and I feel used by my once favorite website. I'm removing them from my favorites list. I'm sad. I'm outraged. I've been betrayed for nothing more then money. I feel dirty.

And I'm Back...

BellSouth sucks. No really. Over a month ago my DSL Modem went down in flames, we'd been having trouble with it for some time but it just crashed for one final swan song. We called BS (a fitting abbreviation) to send us a new one. Yes, it was going to be there ASAP. They even sent us the email confirmation. We wait a week. No modem. My husband called them. The first person he spoke with gave us a UPS tracking number. Enter number= No such UPS tracking number exsist, not in that format. Another week goes by. We call again. This person says that that was the original tracking number from our original modem sent THREE YEARS AGO. We point out that UPS keeps their tracking numbers for eternity and it wasn't even an actual tracking number. Next person who takes the call says they have NO RECORD of us ordering anything. Yeah. Another week goes by. And another. FInally said modem does show up on our doorstep. Now really, what the hell? If you screwed up just say, we screwwed up our bad. I mean again, if you're going to lie to me, don't give me one that I can actually PROVE is a lie. I don't mind human error, it happens. I do mind crappy customer sevice. I urge you to find a better provider if one is available to you.