House of Estrogen

Letter to Blog Spammers

Dear Blog Comment Spammers,

You know who you are... bathroom vanities, jomashop ebay coupon, tankless water heaters, coffeemakersadvisor, sectionalsofasgiant, monogram necklace gold, air conditioning repair north las vegas, and my personal favorite, review on the X4labs penis enhancer. Do you really think you are reaching your intended audience by commenting on my blog?  Does anybody EVER click through to your link from my blog? Do you realize that I mark your comments as spam daily and remove them from my blog? I suppose I should feel flattered that you think I have a large enough audience that you might get some clicks through my site. I'm not though. I'm just annoyed. I'm tired of these comments:

Wow, awesome blog layout! How lengthy have you been running a blog for? you make blogging look easy. The entiure glance of your weeb site is excellent, as well as the content!

Wow, so the entiure glance of my weeb site is excellent? The entiure thing? I'm blushing.

Hello there, just became alert to your blog threough Google, and found that it is reallly informative. I'm gonna watch out for brussels. I will appreciate if you continue this in future. Many people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!

I'm so glad you're watching out for brussels. I will too. Whew!

I almost never wite remarks, howevcer i did some searching and wound up here Simple Woman's Daybook, April 29, 2013 - House of Estrogen. And I actually do have 2 questions for you if it's allright. Could itt be just me or doies it give the impression like a few of thewe remarks come across like written byy brain dead people? :-P And, if you are writing on other social sites, I'd like to keep up with everything new you have to post. Would you list of the complete urls of all your communal pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?

Really, you never wite remarks?  So the fact that you've left this exact same comment five times is... uh... coincidence?  And yes... many of my comments do come across as written byy brain dead people. Funny you should mention that.

Can I simply just say what a relief too uncover someone tht really knows what they are discussing over the internet. You definitely realioze howw tto bring a problem to light and make it important. More and mre people have to read this and understand this side of your story. I can't believe you are not more popular because you definitely possess the gift.

Preaching to the choir, man... I'm bringing problems to light and making them important. I can't believe I'm not more popular. Of course, if I was, I'd get even more spam.

Wow! After all I got a webpage from where I be capable of in fact taake useful data regarding my study and knowledge.

I feel honored that my post about making goodies for teacher gifts is helping your study and knowledge! Wow! Who would have guessed I would be so influential?

For now, I'm just going to keep deleting the spam, but for those of you who are my real readers and true commenters, if you notice me change to comment moderation or other comment security measures, you'll know why.

Thanks,

Ann

 

Finding the Real Children within my Children

Have you seen the Caine's Arcade video yet? If not, it is a must-see. (It is at the bottom of this post.) I love this kid, and more than that, I love his dad. Kids are so spoiled these days (mine included) with iPods, iPads, Wiis, and 24/7 cartoons that it just seems to suck the creativity out of them.  Caine's childhood reminds me more of my own. One summer, all the kids in the neighborhood decided we were going to build a car. Imagine Fred Flintstone's car built with scrap lumber, a million nails, paint, and old roller skate or skateboard wheels, and you have a pretty good picture of it. We spent hours every day from sun up to sun down in the stifling Texas heat in my parents' carport building that thing. My mom's poor car tires suffered more than one puncture wound from the nails we left scattered hither and yon.  She just patched the tires and let us keep going though. We were out of her hair, out of her house, and using every bit of creativity, teamwork, and determination that we had.  After the car's short maiden voyage where we realized our engineering of the wheels really didn't work out so well, we turned the car into a lemonade stand. How's that for making lemonade out of a lemon?

I try to foster that environment for my girls. I kick them outside with the neighbors and tell them they have to play outside.  When Addie and I are taking our weekend siestas, the girls know they aren't allowed in the house unless someone is bleeding. They always manage to entertain themselves - usually with bikes, scooters, jump ropes, sidewalk chalk, dancing, and friends.  They have yet to build anything the scope of a car or arcade though. Perhaps I need to enforce more boredom? We had enough cardboard from broken down Girl Scout cookie boxes that they probably could have built Six Flags if they had been inspired.

Perhaps next time they claim they are bored or ask to watch TV, I'll hand them some packing tape, empty boxes, scrap wood, a box of nails, and a hammer, and tell them to go away. I'd love to see the results.  I know somewhere under the layers of Lady Gaga lyrics, Temple Run high scores, and iCarly quotes, there are children with big dreams, endlessly creative minds, and boundless optimism that only children have.

Here is the Caine's Arcade video. It will make you smile, make you cry, and make you wish you hadn't bought your kid that handheld video game.

Just Sharing a Smile

After my ranting post yesterday, I thought I'd share something that made me smile this morning. Check out this kid, Sam Tsui, on YouTube. He does ALL the vocals on these videos. I'm not sure what I'm more impressed with, his singing, or the video editing! Both are very impressive. Apparently, he has been around for a while, so you may have already seen these. This was my first introduction to him though, and I think he's fantastic!  Enjoy!

 

And here is a link to one more that I couldn't embed for some reason: http://youtu.be/kvAboV8Qfb8

Amazing!

I saw this over on Dooce and just had to share it here too. You remember the OK Go guys, right? They made that incredible treadmill music video a few years ago? Well, with their latest video, I think they may have actually topped themselves... or at least come pretty darn close! This is a must watch!

(for RSS readers, click here to view the video)

Farewell 2009!

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A New Home for House of Estrogen

Ever wanted to check this blog when you're not on your computer that has it bookmarked?  What is it... HouseOfEstrogen.blogger.com? HouseOfEstrogen.blogspot.com? HouseOfEstrogen.typepad.com? Forget that complicated address! Get all your House of Estrogen news, stories, pictures, editorials, useless trivia, and random anecdotes at http://www.houseofestrogen.com.  You don't need to change your current bookmarks. http://houseofestrogen.typepad.com still works, but I've just added the new, improved, easier-to-remember address for your convenience. Enjoy!

Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By

For those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed, I apologize for the onslaught of posts that just popped up in your reader. I'm having some technical difficulties, and my RSS feed wasn't working right for a week. I'm still working through the kinks, but hopefully I'll get it all fixed shortly. For those of you who didn't understand a word of this post, I'm not talking to you! (You really should use Google Reader though! I promise you'll like it.)

Post #200

Two hundred posts! Wow, who knew when I started this blog that I'd have this much to share! I feel like I should be celebrating this milestone with cake or something. It is too late to bake though... maybe I'll just rummage through the pantry for some chocolate chips. I'll treat myself to a Starbuck's pumpkin spice latte tomorrow. If you haven't had one yet - get yourself to a Starbuck's! What are you waiting for?