Book Board Chat

Hello Everyone,

HELP! I'm coming to here because the Book Board knows all!

I was contacted today by a company that does ad campaigns for the smart cars. They want to use the picture of my four Bergamascos in my smart car (the one that is my avatar). I know there are a couple of folks here very knowledgeable in this area that are members here.

If I give my permission, what do I need to be careful about. I already asked about compensation and NOT giving up my rights to the photo. The contact has told me they will need to check with their legal department. Anything else??

I'm amazed the moth is still perched in the same place.

YES!!!!! Finally, successful. At least the works are working for me. Let me know if they don't for you.

The past couple of days, I’ve been seeing cool critters. Last night, it was a frog on the outside of the kitchen window, 18 feet of the ground, eating bugs.

Frog

Today, a Luna Moth. It’s perched on a 2 x 4 to give you an idea of the size.

Luna Moth

We installed rainhandlers http://www.rainhandler.com at our previous house - loved them! No debris to clean out, no ice dams, easy to install. I highly recommend them.

@bookbase

@Sandy Hi, I don't play Words With Friends, but I do play Wordfeud. Myy user name on that is the same as is it is here if you want to play with me. It' s a Scrabble type game. The reviews on it said it was better than Words With Friends.

I clicked on the member's photo, their picture, and the member link next to Home. In each case, I clicked o Home afterwards and it broght back to the page with all the messages.

My mom just sent this to me...

Beyond Orwell’s book 1984

WINSTON

“Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her husband.

"In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered. Actually Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit & Washington.

Ever since the government passed the ‘Civility in Sports Statute’ of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" & the "bad example it sets for the rest of the world," Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. 2-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting.

Yet it wasn't the game that Winston was uninterested in. It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey. Even tho it was the best type of VeggieMeat available after the government revised the ‘American Anti-Obesity Act’ of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce & mince-meat pie), it wasn't anything like real turkey. And ever since the government officially changed the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020 to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, & the room was always cold. Ever since Congress passed the ‘Power Conservation Act’ of 2016, mandating all thermostats - which were monitored & controlled by the electric company - be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable thruout the entire winter.

Still, it was good getting together w/family. Or at least most of the family. Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving medical treatment. He had had many heated conversations w/the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, & everyone was forced into the government health care program. And tho he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort. "The RHC's resources are limited," explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke w/on the phone. "Your mother rec’d all the benefits to which she was entitled. I'm sorry for your loss."

Ed couldn't make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the ‘Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill’ of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines - for everyone but government officials. The 50-mile round trip was about 10 miles too far, & Ed didn't want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here & there.

Thankfully, Winston's brother, John, & his wife were flying in. Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion. No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids. Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added "inconvenience" was an "absolute necessity" in order to stay "one step ahead of the terrorists." Winston's own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via ‘Anti-Profiling Act’ of 2022. That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for "unequal scrutiny," even when probable cause was involved. Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine. Almost.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of 6 progressives & 3 conservatives to leave the law intact. "A living Constitution is extremely flexible,"said the Court's eldest member, Elena Kagan. "Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example," she added.

Winston's thoughts turned to his own children. He got along fairly well w/his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner. Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford. She whined for a week, but got over it.

His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism or any of a # of other calamities were "just around the corner", but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness & outright hostility. It didn't help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the ‘Smoking Control Statute’ of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere w/in 500’ of another human being. Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13. The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to "spur economic growth." This time they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.

Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement. At least he had his memories. He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Ol’ Days, long before government promises to make life"fair for everyone" realized their full potential. Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn't happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them.

He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2011, when all the real nonsense began. "Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we'd just said 'enough is enough' when we had the chance," he thought.

Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.

Patsy, I'm like June. I don't function well when I'm hot, just ask DH - LOL. I can't stand to sweat. I even have a fan blasting on me when I use the treadmill. Speaking of the treadmill - I've lost 24.4 lbs. in 5 months. I'm losing, slowly but surely.

Our electric bill was $156.32 and our AC stays between 68 and 70 aand we had some scorching days. Our house is all electric except for heat which is propane.

grano9 Which of those folks were at the gathering in FL? I can remember you & your the DH, steamboatbill & Lois, nandodge, me & DH. Do you have a picture? I've also met bkwrm40, booboo & her DH, ted & fred, escbooks, mainelady, bookbase, bancheebabe, bookdelle33/wraysbooks, zuni4, dejavubooks, lludwig & her DH, I know there was a couple of others at the Maine gathering that I can't think of.

Hello everyone,

OMG, Is it ever hot outside. Just came in from mowing another section of the farm with the push mower. I finally had mobile tractor repair person ome out today and take a look at our tractor that we couldn't get started. He's pretty sure it's the glow plug. Which wokayokayd tested and thought was okay. I've ordered two new ones which of course have to come from California. So maybe next week we'll have our tractor with our 4ft. mower on the back in use.

@Kathleen I had not noticed the blue delete button in my header previous to my doing the process that I described to you, then it seem to show up. Perhaps it was there before that but I had not noticed it. Anyway, I'm trying to figure this new site out. Also trying to figure out the voice recognition on my cellphone also. I'm very much appreciative of this site that's been designed for us. It's fantastic!

@kathleen see my post below

You can delete a message by going to your own profile, then going to the activity button, and then the personal button, then all of your messages come up and you can delete them.

Hi Everyone