Tag: Muppets

Posted in Blogs, Chocolate, Food, Uncategorized

Through The Blog Storm

Posted on by D. Parker

1afood59Through the blog storm,
we reach the shore
We give it all
but they want more
And we wait for views
With or without you
Can’t blog with
or without views
And you blog yourself all day
And you blog, and you blog
And you blog yourself away.
If this had audio you’d know I sang it just like Bono of U2, it’s like we’re twins, ok, maybe closer to the Swedish Chef from The Muppets, but it’s all good.

Blogging is a lot like cooking. Some people do it instinctively. A pinch of this. A dash of that. Somehow they know just the right blend. Others follow a precise recipe.

1. First thing you need to decide, what kind of cooking, I mean, blogging do you enjoy? Home-cooked, formal, informal, sugar-free, spicy, sweet, sour, no artificial flavours or colours, grilling, gourmet, fusion? Do you want to indulge your readers with moist, sweet chocolate brownies (my secret, melt the butter, let it cool then slowly add it to the mixture) or spicy chipolte chicken taco with guacamole (drooling)…

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2. With blogging, like cooking you need an appreciative audience. Those who don’t just eat to live, but live to eat. Those who don’t just like blogs, but love them.

3. Posts can fill up our email like a meal can fill up our stomachs, but too much of a good thing can be overwhelming, sometimes a snack is the way to go.

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4. Processed food, junk food, fast food, sure, they call themselves food, but really, food by any other name is not always food…same goes for blogging.

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5. The blogging community is family style dining, so just dig in, reach over, around, share, like, join in, engage! Don’t just invite others to your table, sit at theirs too! Eat up! Even indulge in blog parties…
Jason – https://aopinionatedman.com/
Elena – http://blogsharelearn.com/blogsharelearn-linky-party-may-1316/
Niki – https://therichnessofasimplelife.wordpress.com/
Shawna and Shareen #LinkYourLife – http://honeyquill.com/
Danny – http://dreambigdreamoften.co/
Carolina –  https://yesterdayafter.com/
Vicky – http://www.singlemotherahoy.com/
Pop Down Under – https://amommasview.wordpress.com/
Janice and all the lovely ladies that give us
Friday Blogger’s Pit Stop and Inspire Me Monday –
http://mostlyblogging.com/

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6. Don’t think if people will: Like it, share it, reblog it, tweet it, agree, disagree, hate you, be a troll under your blogging bridge, or if you’ll end up looking like Mr. Bean with a turkey on your head. Just do what you want to do…that turkey looks good on you.

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7. When you don’t have time to prepare a meal, aka a post, or you need some comfort food or a comfort blogging advice post…
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/04/10/im-hooked-on-a-feeling/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/08/27/message-in-a-bottle/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/03/26/why-i-will-never-be-freshly-pressed/

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8. Sometimes you slave over a hot stove aka computer, plate your hopefully tasty content, and serve it up….you wait for readers to gobble it up, but sometimes they never come to the table, even when called repeatedly. Maybe they’re busy, after all, when they open their email, it’s like a giant buffet has been served up, how much can they possibly eat? Maybe they’ve already eaten or are dining elsewhere. It happens. Try again.

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9. Get out there, be a shameless social media self-promoting bloghussy (like me), most of all, enjoy!
Where I’m a complete twit: https://twitter.com/yadadarcyyada
Endlessly baffled by humanity: https://www.facebook.com/yadadarcyyada
The desert where I wander: http://www.pinterest.com/dpark2/
Where I google, not nearly as fun as it sounds: https://plus.google.com/112672588892199127381/posts

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10. You can tell someone how to cook or blog, but that doesn’t mean they can do it, or do it like you. Or should. Cook what you want, blog what you want, eat what you want. Taste life.

My best advice about blogging and cooking? Don’t miss the donut by looking through the hole. Dear readers, any favourite blogging tips or recipes you can’t live with or without? Bon Appetit!

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Posted in Blogs, Canada, Chocolate, Family, Holidays, Internet, Movies, Music, Star Wars, Televison, Uncategorized, Zombies

Hello It’s Me

Posted on by D. Parker

1hello3

Hello
It’s me
I was
Wondering
if after all
this time
we could
virtually meet
To go over
what is
real
or
bloggerspeak

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Hello, can you hear me?
I’m in Canada dreaming about who I’ll one day be
Hello from the other side
Feels like I’ve blogged a thousand times
I sometimes forget, uphill can make you rest
And at least I can say I tried
Not as much tears me up anymore
So hello from the other side
Feels like I’ve blogged a thousand times

Thanks Adele, like ‘Hello’ is ever leaving my head.

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Hello, I’m probably one of the most honest people ever – except I lie.
When I say I’m fine, sometimes, I lie.
Even if it’s mostly to myself.
I haven’t been well for a while now, even more so than usual, which is saying something. I’ve been pushing through with sheer force of will, but even that is wearing thin.
Apparently I need more ‘self-care’, which apparently, I’m very not ‘good’ at it.

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So when an unlikely source, Groupon threw me a line – 50% off movies and popcorn (I brought the popcorn home for my son), I thought, why not? I wasn’t disappointed to watch The Hunger Games take its final bow on the big screen, except the title Mockingjay Part 2, really, that’s kind of boring, how about The Mockingjay Awakens, or Mockingjay Hurray! or an Australian version, Mockingjay G’day! I wasn’t thrilled by The Hunger Games books, but I did enjoy exploring our world, choices, freedoms and illusions of, through this world, onscreen more. When Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) keeps asking Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), ‘Real or Not Real’, I understood. Too often the world can feel violent and even surreal, but what is real…or not real? I suppose the best we can do is try to stand for something, or we’ll fall for anything.

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Christmas music jingled away as I waited for the movie to begin, and I realized, blogging and Christmas have a lot more in common than I thought, like…

1. It’s better to give than receive. Even if you feel you don’t have enough, try to help others in some way. In blogging you can give by: ‘liking’, ‘sharing’, and/or ‘commenting’. You may not agree with every word, but appreciate that blogger took the time to post (as you wish to be appreciated).

2. Connection – you never know who you’re going to virtually meet and how they’ll change your life, or you theirs.

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3. Fruitcake and posts – love, hate, like bits of, or given time, both could be used to prop open a door to…

4. Lots of surprises, awkward moments, comfort, joy, regifting, and more than a few ugly sweaters (still, it’s all in the eye of the beholder).

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5. Plenty of glitz and fancy bits, yet sometimes, the substance and what really matters still shines through.

6. Gingerbread, yes, delightful, but sometimes hard to handle, especially without breaking.

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9. Posts hung like stockings by the internet chimney with care, with hopes that readers soon will be there.

8. Cookies, meals out, eggnog, and other holiday treats, all awesome, but too many and you start to feel sluggish, tired, irritable, and overwhelmed. Blogging can be the same – know yourself, know your readers.

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9. We can all be Santa’s Elves filling Santa’s shelves – bringing posts, perhaps comfort and joy…

10. Cookies, carrots, comments, posts, shares, maybe some milk (or in some cases, more adult libations) – all left for those we hope will show up.

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11. Visions of sugar plums. Hoping to inspire and please, but sometimes, as hard as we try, our posts, our holidays, our days fall flat. There’s no time limit on getting up, or starting over. Dust off and try again! 

12. Christmas trees, all different, just as all blogs are different. Don’t worry if you have the right niche, enough followers, comments, likes, etc. Don’t overthink. Send your creativity into the world, who knows what will come of it…anything, everything.

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With blogging and Christmas and everything else, be brave, do what you feel, even if it goes wrong, you tried and that can’t really be wrong. Slow down, take the time to really enjoy and take it all in (including chocolate).

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Posted in Blogs, Books, Food, Movies, Music, Televison, Uncategorized, Zombies

Rock Me Amadeus

Posted on by D. Parker

1funny524No one ever talked or did stuff like they did in 80’s movies. Ever.

In the future, they’ll probably dig up 80’s movies and come to conclusions like: Ferris Bueller was a god, aliens could phone home from Earth, “wax on, wax off” was a common phrase, and paternity results were only told to your child in space, after you cut off their hand. They’re going to think the 80’s were even more messed up than they were.

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And what was with romance in the 80’s?
Why sit on a table with a birthday cake and a cute boy? I can think of much better things to do…with that cake.
Everyone was dancing – dirty dancing, flashdancing, Kevin Bacon dancing (don’t know what else to call it).
A guy with a boom box and a trench coat outside your house…nowadays, restraining order, or it would go viral, or both.1funny560

Officers, gentlemen, risky business, funny business.
Adventures, in space or babysitting, as long as they were most excellent, dude.
Supernatural, psycho, science, time travel – sometimes all at once.
Where’d they get all the gremlins, goonies, vampires, muppets, and aliens?
Actually, that all sounds like the soundtrack to my 80’s.

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Know what also ruled in the 80’s? Political incorrectness. Who could worry about offending anyone when girls just wanted to have fun and boys wanted girls to have fun, especially with them?

I kind of miss it. Sure, political correctness is good in theory, don’t say unto others what you don’t want said to you, but has the correctness over-corrected? I don’t know if you can change human nature, people just say weird stuff.

  • “That’s the best kind of cancer to have.”  Let’s review that sentence. Nope, still looks weird. The best kind of cancer is no cancer.

  • “Don’t worry.”  Why are they telling me not to worry, is it because they know I should be worried and they don’t want me to panic?

  • “Do you have a bathroom?”  Did you mean to ask if you can use my bathroom, because yes, I have a bathroom, I don’t ‘go’ in the yard.

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  • “Money won’t make you happy.”  I think money and I would be very happy together, we’d make the perfect couple (couple of million).

  • “Time heals all wounds.”  Not true. Time doesn’t heal anything, it just passes.

  • “If you get lost in the woods, don’t panic.”  Of course I’m going to panic! I’m lost, in the woods!!! Surrounded by bears, badgers, and bugs, maybe zombies in the dark (when I picture being lost in the woods, it’s always dark), and with my luck, zombie bears, badgers and bugs (note to self, pitch a spin-off to AMC, working title, The Walking Bears, Badgers, and Bugs™ ).

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  • “Everything happens for a reason.”  Technically correct, but I’m not sure that’s how people mean it.

  • “I think therefore I am.”  Not true for everyone, have you been on the internet?

  • “I know you are, but what am I?”  This one is actually timeless.

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 Back to 2015, my Don’t Worry, Be Happy 365 day project enters Week 3, will I falter?
Week 1, amazing: https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/06/03/dont-worry-be-happy/
Week 2, a revelation: https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/06/09/to-blog-or-not-to-blog/

Week 3:

1. Remove 15 minutes or more per day of sitting time (replace with dancing, but with less enthusiasm to Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus, my knee will thank me).

2. Remove another 100 calories per day (Again, not veggies…perhaps cake, but not, like chocolate cake, right?).

3. Remove 15 minutes or more of screen time per day to read or research.

4. Do 1 thing I’ve put off doing.

5. Read a book I said I’d never read (doesn’t leave me the range you’d think it would).

6. Pay it forward, aka do something good and don’t tell anyone what I did.

7. Try a food I haven’t tried (I guess I can’t sneak cake in and pretend?).

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Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Televison, Uncategorized

Labyrinth

Posted on by D. Parker

ImageI’ve never been sure if Labyrinth was meant to be a children’s film that grown-ups love, or a grown-up film that some children just might like as well.

I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Either way it’s certainly a brilliant lesson in be careful what you wish for.

Remarkable performances by David Bowie (of course) and Jennifer Connelly (a vision of things to come), but we all know, the Muppets are the real stars in this fantastic fantasy flick.

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Bowie is the perfect choice (again, of course) for Jareth, the Goblin King. Edgy, intense, mature, and smooth, he embodies a very, very adult world. Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) is drawn to him (of course) as she teeters on the brink of becoming a woman while still desperately clutching onto her childhood with a grubby fist. Jareth is the embodiment of temptation, to want, to yearn, to cling…he compels her, offering what she thinks she wants, fighting herself to take responsibility for her own actions.

In the throes of teen angst, Sarah blames everyone for her restlessness and discontent. Jareth seems the answer to all until she sees the truth (“I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.” ~Jareth) and the consequences – losing not only her baby brother, but herself.

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Sarah‘s lesson? There are so many to choose from, but the most important? That accepting who she was, is, and will be has its own rewards…instead of running from the future, she must embrace it and the present. The past will take care of itself, it always does.

OK, this definitely isn’t a new story, but this was beyond well-told, all the same.

And it has Bowie. And Bowie singing. Sigh.

 Sarah: That’s not fair!
Jareth: You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?

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Magical…magically so.

Posted in Christmas, Movies, Televison, Uncategorized

THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL

Posted on by D. Parker

christmas158There have been so many versions of A Christmas Carol over the years, but none make me smile the way The Muppet Christmas Carol does.

They’ve adapted this (added a Marley bro so they could use Statler and Waldorf),christmas160and made it a little more child-friendly that the original to give us a heart-warming, joyful gift that keeps giving. And we can’t get enough of this redemption ghost story, can we?

Kermit is the perfect Bob Cratchit and Michael Caine is the quintessential Scrooge.
I can’t say how many times I’ve watched this, but it’s still fun.

Tell me you can get this out of your head:

Still love The Muppets. Think I may have to go watch it…er, again.

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