Project Runway-The Stupid Team Concept; Finally, a Holder for My Kindle, Much More

PIC OF DAY

Project Runway 2013-Teams? Drama Queen Teams-It Overwhelms
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I thought the idea of having teams to be a bit dumb for the Project Runway experience. Now the "teams" have been culled down to only two on a team but even that is a bit dimbulb.

The season began, however, with the only two teams which had something like eight designers on a team. Each designer had to come up with their own design for the challenge at hand so the concept of this huge team kind of got lost in the mix.

Thus one team was the "winning" team even though there might well have been a bunch of losing designs as part of it. The other team would be, by definition, the losing team even though they may have had stellar designs as part of this losing team.

Evidently Project Runway got tired of it for the concept now has the teams being reduced to two designers per team.

Even two drama queens on a team is a bit of a hoot but so okay, this is better.

For a quick look at some designs this season, below is my favorite for the Miranda Lambert country music singer challenge.  It's by designer Kate and I think it's gorgeous.  Kate did not get into the top three for this design but she was safe.

 

Below is a design by contender Daniel that the judges hated.  It was pretty bad.  Expect Daniel not to last much longer.

 

Below is a design by contender Benjamin that the judges loved.  I think it's quite pretty but nothing new or daring.

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"WORDS WITH FRIENDS"-Ersatz Wordsmiths, Beware! For "QI" IS a Word!
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So I play Boggle every night, a quick few games to end my day. I play it at Pogo.com. I also fancy myself to be a writer of some sort.

So big as day I put up a post on Facebook requesting challengers for a game of "Words With Friends"(WWF) with a little snark comment that I generally win.

So far my daughter has beat me to bits TWICE! One fellow who responded to my call beat me so bad I forgot my last name. Another "friend" gave me a little lead at first to beguile me then crushed me to bits. A former co-worker is also smashing me like I am 5th grader.

I use a lot of strange words in Boggle so this sort of thing is not unknown to me. But trust that I am learning that this ersatz Scrabble game, made infamous by the fine even-tempered Alec Baldwin, is as much about strategically placing tiles as it is about the English language.

I do quite enjoy participating in this game, something that would not have been possible a decade ago. For as I go about my business I hear the little "briiiiiing" informing me that one of my opponents has completed a move.

It's a nice way to fill in those little voids in our day; sitting on the toilet comes to mind but do not tell my opponents this.

I am willing to play anyone else so willing but I am not now so cavalier.

So I challenge anybody wants to beat a self-proclaimed wordsmith at Scrabble, go on and challenge me.

I'll do like Alec Baldwin and refuse to turn it off during airplane take-offs.

Heh.
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Who Knew You Had to CLEAN the Darn Dishwasher?
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Let me state here, up front and fair and balanced like, that I have only had a dishwasher in the house in which I now live.

Yes I have lived here now ten years almost but hand to God it never occurred to me that you had to CLEAN a dishwasher.

Now lest I sound like a seriously bad housekeeper, it was only in the past few months that I'd noticed that the dishwasher began to look, eh, a little grimy.

The thing was covered with black dirt all along the sides and back of the door.

I have, through the years, had to scoop our dishwasher gunk and mostly kept it scrubbed for proper use.

The black stuff was mold.

First thing, husband is an ersatz appliance expert who worked at Sears for many years. I went to the expert.

"They have stuff to clean dishwashers," he told me matter-of-factly.

Say what?

The concept of having to clean CLEANING stuff gives me pause.

I don't know about stuff to clean the dishwasher but I do know about bleach. Bleach kills mold.

I fixed me a bottle of bleach to spray and I cleaned all the grout in my bathroom, I sprayed the dishwasher door like a maniac, I sprayed everywhere looked like mold might like to live.

My dishwasher looks brand new after I ran a cycle with plain bleach.

Bleach.

When you live in a swamp, it's a must-have.


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Invention Needed-Invention Created
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I am in need of a device to hold my Kindle that I may read it at eye level. I do not want to hold it up in front of my face, for while the Kindle is light in weight, the arms get weary. Also, I do like to eat lunch while reading the Kindle so I need my hands.

I FOUND IT!

So okay, somebody needs to invent a better version of a Kindle holder than my creation. My creation will do for now.

It's a vise, a Sears Craftsman vise, a tool designed to hold and item while one works on it. This sort of thing is usually used when performing some kind of detailing on an object that requires that the object stand up straight, not with its bulk laying down.

It has a suction device which will hold it to a flat surface via a lever. It can be adjusted for wider or narrower as required for the object to be held. Since I'm holding a Kindle I only need adjust once and it stays put.

It's a small tool, this vise, and it's portable without too much bother.

Now somebody needs to invent a prettier thing to hold my Kindle but using this clever adaption of an ordinary tool as a guide.

I'm just' sayin'.
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-Has Anybody Seen the New Prescription Deductible?
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Part D Medicare it's called and those not using it complain that it's not financed and costing the non-using taxpayers money.

Somebody's needs to help me understand how THEY are paying for MY medicine.

First, I am prescribed only fairly routine medicine, cholesterol blocker….stuff for heart patients. I am perfectly willing to pay my share and in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, are you telling me that the almost $2,000 a year I pay for my meds is not enough?????

I've gone into that infamous donut hole a couple of times too. So add another $500 to that amount.

NOBODY'S PAYING FOR MY MEDICINE!

However, there are plenty of people not paying a cent for their medicine, maybe they're poor, I dunno.

But I pay a fortune and that deductible is but another Obama ploy to get rid of the donut hole.

The donut hole is a segue for someone with great medicine needs to pass into a scenario that will have their medicines be cheaper. Cancer patients are a good example. Chemotherapy meds run into the thousands. The cancer patient probably pays, like me, two grand routinely a year as we all do. They then go into that donut hole so they had to pay a bunch more money until their contribution reached a certain amount-it was around $4800 a year.

At that point the medicines become very cheap. You don't want to bankrupt a cancer patient but they'll have to pay almost $5k out of pocket.

In order to eliminate that awful donut hole, which made sense on some level until you're a cancer patient and not only might you die, you'll have to pay an additional 4K if you've any hope to survive.

It was downright cruel.

So Obama and Pelosi go out tooting that they've eliminated the donut hole but isn't it obvious that this was done by INCREASING EVERYONE's deductible?

I'm jus' sayin'.

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ENDING WITH A SMILE
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