This afternoon I took my two sons to the barber shop to get their haircut. The gentleman cutting my 14-year old’s hair kept up some friendly chatter. I heard him ask my son what kind of music he liked. “Hmm,” he said. “I like Spanish classical guitar.” The barber stopped his snipping mometarily.

“Spanish classical guitar? You mean, like, flamenco?”

“No, like Segovia,” came the response.

The barber was very surprised, but pleasantly so. “What else?” he prodded. “Mozart?”

“Yep,” said my son. “I also really like Beethoven and Bach.”

The barber looked around in silent amazement. It made me wonder what other boys had replied to such questions? You’d think my son was from Mars or something. The barber wasn’t snobby or anything, just extremely surprised at my young son’s seemingly mature tastes.

As a kid, I grew up liking what everyone else liked, mostly because, well, because everyone else liked it. I guess the peer pressure never really allowed me to be ME, you know what I mean? I have been trying to make sure my kids have the freedom to be themselves, not what is spoon-fed to them. It’s not easy! But it all got me to thinking. And I spent the rest of the afternoon musing on what fodder our kids are generally spoon-fed from an early age. I grew up with Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody and Mr. Rogers. They were corny shows, but they were witty and at least they didn’t treat children like stupid, silly idiots. I recently saw “The Ice Age” and some other “just for kids” movies with my children, and I have been appalled at the lame, insipid prattle being passed off as movies today. What’s happening? And what’s been influencing our young kids in this post-modern culture?

*BRITNEY*
(I tried to find a picture of her, but couldn’t find anything that wasn’t porn).

OK, Elmo is really cute but he’s about as smart as a box of rocks.

Hm. So I ask again, why does our modern culture treat kids like they are stupid idiots?

I’ve found another great promotion (and have some buzz on some good free software): www.DecryptandDrive.com is the name of a giveaway by PKWARE (the inventor of the .zip standard). Prizes include a Honda Scooter worth $2500, bicycles, a Nintendo Wii and Mario Kart Wii, $50 Gas Cards, and a $10 iTunes Gift Card! It’s very easy to enter, see here for official rules and information, and see here for the contest home page.

Basically, you download PKWARE’s SecureZIP software. Now be assured that there is no purchase necessary to enter the giveaway. The software is free (PKWARE is running this promotional to generate interest in their software), and the program is like that *other* zip software (which, by the way, is not free); but SecureZip is better. SecureZIP is a capable file compressor/decompressor and encryption tool for your computer files.

When you download the program, you obtain a free “digital certificate.” The digital certificate serves two purposes: one, so you can securely share files with others if you want without using a password (which is customary with encryption software); and two, it enables you to access a game online to win prizes.

SecureZip is nice software. SecureZip does stuff like protects your important documents by encrypting them, saves space on your hard drive by compressing them, and also unencrypts and decompresses your stuff. It has no spyware and no extra junk like toolbars in the download. See the site for more information.

The giveaway looks great and the software is free, so what have you got to lose? Check the official rules for more information.

I have a secret to tell you. I have NEVER tried Ferrero chocolate. Nope. I know! It’s crazy! I must be the only one! Ohhh I’ve seen them on the shelves at the stores. They look back at me, tempting me with their big, bright shiny wrappers.

I have another secret. I’m not a great big fan of chocolate, either. (Yes, I am a woman!) I just don’t ferociously crave chocolate like so many of my gender do. I don’t know why. The “death by chocolate” craze just never appealed to me. But don’t get me wrong– I DO love chocolate and I do eat it when offered! I just don’t think, eat, and breathe chocolate.

But I may change that now. All for the cause, of course. :D

If you haven’t heard, Ferrero chocolates is donating money to the Share Our Strength organization, an organization that helps feed hungry children in the United States. Ferrero has something going on at their website (see here), where you can help donate to the hungry, too. It’s the Share Something Sweet program– send a customizable e-card (it’s free!) and Ferrero will donate $1 for each card sent, up to $10,000. And if you join the Ferrero Facebook page (see here), then Ferrero will donate another $1 to Share Our Strength (up to $1,000)! How is that for really neat! I donate to the food banks in the area, I hope you do, too– and this is another very easy way to help people in need. I think it’s a very worthy cause. Please consider it, especially as winter weather and the holidays arrive.

By the way, the Ferrero website has a nifty chocolate personality quiz here. Of course I tried it!

You are a Ferrero Rondnoir™ Dark Chocolates Personality

You have a tendency to be drawn to all things elegant, modern and tasteful. Your sophisticated palate desires the complexity and rich, velvety dark chocolate of Rondnoir™ dark chocolates. You fancy culture and refinement infused with a little excitement along the way. And you know the real fun only starts after dark!

Wow. I’m sophisticated! And the real fun begins after dark, huh? Yeah, that’s when the dishes are done and I can go to bed! lol. It’s a fun quiz. I’ll have to try those “Rondnoir” chocolates and see if they are really “me.”

Anyway, this is a good cause, and it’s EASY to do. Please consider helping the needy! Thanks!

P.S. I found this fact at Ferrero’s Facebook site: The amount of ROCHER® produced in 1 week would cover the area of 16 football fields. lol!

P.S.S. This is not a paid post! I thought my chocoholic friends might like to know about this to help justify their addiction, lol!

Like contests? I have a really great one for you. If you are into telling great stories, by writing or by video, this is something for you. It’s the Shopping Confessions Contest. You write about something crazy you’ve done while or for shopping.

This is the official video explaining the nitty-gritty.

I’m not sure if I will enter. I can’t really say that I am a big online shopping hound… although I am a NUT when it comes to office supplies, especially pens. I don’t know what it is, but I have this thing for pens. I love them! I am always buying new ones, looking for the “perfect” pen. Since I haven’t found it yet, it goes without saying that I must keep buying more until I do! lol.

But if you do enter, do me a favor and take a little part of me with you. When you sign up to enter, could you use my blog url as the referring link? When you see “url” in the line on the contest registration page (the regsitration page is here), include my url: http://freakyfrugalite.com. I won’t win the big bucks like you will, but I’ll be entered in to possibly winning a few dollars!

This looks like a cool contest, with up to $33,000 in prizes. Check out the videos and stories and see if you can do better!

Kittens are SO gullible, lol. I sometimes have a difficult time restraining myself from having too much fun with my kitty, Olivia. I don’t want to frustrate her and spoil her sweet temperament. But, boy, she is so funny and such a little tease!

She likes to look out the window but can’t seem to get it through her 2-month old peanut brain that you can’t walk through glass, love. But she insists on trying, again and again. Talk about a hard head, lol!

And she’s so clumsy. Are cats with six toes clumsy or is it just my cat? She teeters, she totters, she comes crashing down and spinning like a striken airplane bomber. By the way, I’d like to dispense with that old wives’ tale that says cats always land on their feet. Er, should I say, Olivia dispenses with it. Stupid gravity. lol. She likes my computer keyboard, too. Maybe I make it look like so much fun? But one of her favorite hobbies is playing keylogger. She’s deleted a few emails with her keyboard trailblazing. So if I haven’t replied back to you, that’s why. sigh.

During one of her funny antics, I managed to grab the camera and shoot a short video. Here she is discovering the wonders of the top section of her new kitty-litter box, complete with flap. She’s too tiny to use this top part of the pan yet (we’re just using the bottom for now), but I’m encouraging her to explore the top of it for the big graduation day. Until then, we are hourly sweeping up mounds of kitty litter all over the floor. She seems to like to toss it around after her toilette.

I took this fun quiz! It was only two questions long! I am amazed that this one was so accurate, really. But I came up as a Marilyn Monroe?! I’m speechless. lol.

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz…

You Are a Marilyn!

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

What do you think about baby umbilical cord-blood banking? I first heard of it when expecting my first child, in the early 90s. (I’d also heard that hospitals take the placenta and sell them and that they were used in things like shampoo and hand lotions, is this true?). Cryo-Cell is a company that distributes umbilical cord collection kits to expectant parents shortly before the birth of their baby. When the baby is born, a small collection of the cord blood is saved and stored at the Cryo-Cell facility for future use should it arise.

I have a somewhat personal experience with this. A close friend of mine had a baby who later developed bone cancer. The young child needed a bone marrow transplant, but no suitable donors could be found. So the couple had another baby, and this new baby’s bone marrow was a match. It was a very emotional time, though. I suppose that storing something like cord blood would have helped in this situation, because stem cells collected from cord blood has been shown to be useful in treating many diseases, including leukemia, anemia, lymphoma, diabetes, and cerebral palsy. It’s pretty amazing, actually. I also had another friend who, before major surgery, banked her own blood ahead of time. She was concerned about the safety of the public blood supply (this was during the mid-80s, during the threat of AIDS in the blood supply) and wanted to ensure that any transfusions would be of her own stored blood. I thought it was a smart thing to do.

There is a lot more information about this at the Cryo-Cell website; I found the information to be riveting and very comprehensive. They even offer gift certificates for the holidays! You can buy a collection kit and give it away as a holiday gift (or even a baby gift). (See Cryo-Cell’s current offers here). What do you think about something like that? Would you appreciate a gift certificate from a grandma for something like this?

This is my first digital camcorder. I really tried to do my homework before buying one. I had a list of “needs” and a list of “wants,” and then I had my budget, which was like a wrench thrown into the list!

Needs:
Good clarity, sufficient for web videos
Good stop-and-start capability
EIS- Electronic Image Stabilizer
Easy to move data from camcorder to computer
Good audio
Good battery life (preferably a lithium battery and NOT AAs)

Wants:
Good color
Flash memory
Camera light
LCD screen

I searched online for loads of models, and visited my local BestBuy and Circuit City. I initially considered getting a miniDV camcorder (they use tiny cassettes to record the data), but I realized I’d also have to buy a supply of tapes (as well as carry them wherever I went), buy a firewire cable to transmit the data onto my computer, and buy software to enable the data to be read in my computer. What a hassle. I decided not to get a miniDV, even though these were within my budget.

I really wanted a flash memory camcorder. I love being able to eject the SD card from my Canon digital camera and popping it into my laptop reader. It makes everything so easy and I’d like the same with a camcorder. But there is a caveat for the convenience: flash camcorders lose a bit of video quality compared to the miniDV. And flash camcorders are more expensive than miniDV.

In the end, I found a clearance on a display model for the Samsung SC-MX10. It was $100 off the original price of $260! But some of my Needs and Wants I had to compromise. I’ve been using the camcorder for several weeks, and here’s what I have found:

Pros:
Flash memory (VERY easy to transfer data)
Very good LCD monitor
Good battery life
Good stop-and-start capability
Lots of settings
Very lightweight and extremely portable

Cons:
Washed-out color
Audio is so-so
No camera light
Lots of settings

I have “lots of settings” for both because the effect of the settings is very difficult to determine. For example, there are several settings for light exposure (auto, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, etc). I don’t see much difference between them. All the color is washed out to a degree, no matter what setting I use. What good is having a variety of confusing settings when the difference between them all is negligible?

To me, the flash memory capability and the outstanding battery life makes up for everything; I just wish it had more color. Here’s an example of a video on my digital camera, and another video with the Samsung. Guess which one is which?

The first video is the Samsung. The video is clearer, but the color is not as vibrant as my Canon digital camera. That’s my only complaint with the Samsung.

It is also very important to use a special “high speed” SD card for the Samsung. I used a regular, budget SD card and the video is somewhat blurry. When I switched to a Sandisk Ultra II SD card, my videos were much clearer. The reson for this is that regular SD cards write the data slower than the higher-speed SD cards. High speed SD cards are a little more expensive than the regular types, but not much more. It’s worth it, believe me.

OK, enough about my impressions, now for the stats. The Samsung SC-MX10 is very lightweight, less than 1 pound. It fits perfectly into my hands (it’s about 3″ x 5″ and 2″ thick) and has a cozy adjustable strap. It is wonderfully portable. I can tuck the camcorder and my digital camera in the same camera bag.

The Samsung comes with two batteries– a small button battery to save settings, and a lithium-ion battery. The li-on battery charges very quickly. The manual says the battery has 120-minute life, but I get up to 180. I am very pleased with the battery.

The battery is charged while in the camcorder (cable included). There are ports for firewire/USB (which I don’t use since I simply eject the SD card), a multi-cable jack (AV/S), and the port for charging the battery. The buttons are very simple– power, record, play mode. These buttons are repeated on the LCD monitor when opened, so it’s very convenient. The camera powers up very quickly; it does not, however, have a “pause” feature. The optical zoom works very well, and retains focus. I found the button for zooming a little awkward. If you press the button too hard (easy to do), the zooming jerks in (or out). I wish I could set this to zoom slow (maybe I can but I am still trying to figure out all these settings). The camcorder also has a built-in microphone (which I found to be rather low) and a built-in speaker for replaying video. It has something called EIS, which is an electronic image stabilizer. If you have shaky hands, this is good– this feature helps keep the images a little steadier and eliminates the shaky effect.

There’s a handy little button that, when pushed, will tell you in low-power mode how much battery time you have left. This is very convenient. When you power up the camera, the LCD monitor displays the battery time remaining and also– this is great– shows how many minutes you have left on your SD memory card! Love this!

So my opinion of the Samsung? I love it, I just wish the thing expressed more color. It’s well-designed, very convenient, and I got a great deal for a flash camcorder. Knowing what I know now, I would never pay the retail price of $250-$280 for it, though. This camera is perfect for computer video, like uploading to video sharing sites (which is what I use it for). I don’t think it would be well-suited for larger TVs with home-video in mind. The poor color is a major detriment.

Welll this is a “novel” idea (ha!): an online library, ala Netflix. It’s called BookSwim. It’s kind of like a library/rental program rolled into one. I checked it out. The selection is still a little slim, but it’s growing and there are some really good books there. This could be a real blessing for homeschoolers, as well as for book lovers.

It basically works this way: sign up online and pay a monthly fee at BookSwim. You reserve books into your queue, and they are sent to you. When you finish reading them, send them back. Your next books from your queue will be sent to you. Shipping is completely free, both to and from your house (the books come in postage-paid packaging).

The great thing about this is that there are NO DUE DATES and NO LATE FEES! I like this aspect of it. I use my local library but I have to drive there (costs money for gas) and if I forget my due date (which has happened a lot lately), I am hit with hefty fines.

This service looks really great for people in very rural areas who have no access to local libraries, who like the convenience of online rental services, who read slowly or very quickly, and who prefer a variety of books, especially newly-released books. There is a wide selection of topics, so I can see this kind of business taking off.

If you are interested, click: BookSwim. I like the idea of this service so much that I’ve decided to become an affiliate for BookSwim. So I will get a little commission if you sign up using my link! I’ll keep the button to BookSwim in my sidebar, should you want to check it out in the future.

I’m stunned. I found out this week that more of my favorite blogs have been deleted from Entrecard (or left the community), and some are getting deleted for stupid things like their widgets not showing up in Internet Explorer. COME ON, this is a qualification for Entrecard?! Just about every blog will be intermittently deleted because of technical problems with Internet Explorer!

Hey, Entrecard– you have had a whole lot of technical problems over the months, much, much more than us bloggers all combined. Cut us some slack for tech problems, would ya? After all, that’s what we did for you!

Some EC bloggers are complaining that they “can’t see others’ widgets.” So these bloggers are instructed to report the offending blogs to the EC Higher Powers. I have a kinder, gentler solution: Mr. Blogger, why not post a comment on the widget-less “offending” blog, and ASK the blogger if they realize their widget isn’t showing. Wouldn’t that be more courteous than reporting to the Widget Gestapo where the blog will be instantly deleted? And maybe it’s a problem with your browser, Mr. Blogger?

I used Firefox for dropping Entrecards, but it seemed that half the blogs I visited had no widget. How could this be? I tried Opera browser, and lo and behold– widgets! So I use Opera to drop cards. Actually, I am so impressed with Opera’s speed and reliability that I use it all the time now.

My point is this: a little bit of understanding and common courtesy will save an unsuspecting blogger a heck of a lot of teeth-gnashing. And there IS such a thing as taking “quality” standards too far, ya know?

You see, at first, quick and decisive deletions of blogs from Entrecards was touted as the way to get rid of “splogs” and spammy blogs. Then there came “blog quality” guidelines, very vague in my opinion, where GOOD blogs were suddenly deleted from the system. Some were deleted because their web servers were down, others had Internet Explorer tech problems, others up and left out of disgust for these new stricter and arbitrary regulations.

I’ve read at the forum that EC doesn’t give bloggers a “warning” of impending deletion because they “don’t have the time or resources.” Um, well all of this irresponsible and accidental deleting and reinstating is eating up a lot of resources, too. Won’t you err on the side of your fellow bloggers?

The whole thing is unjust and makes me sick to my stomach. Entrecard, I think it was better when you had splogs in the system. At least we bloggers had some say in the matter whether we wanted to visit and drop on such blogs. Now, Entrecards seems bent on devouring its own. Somehow, like the Patriot Act and the meaning of the word “terrorist,” “splog/non-quality” has morphed from “someone who does harm” to “someone who doesn’t fall in line with our way of thinking.” It’s also really scary that just by speaking out about these injustices, I’m really afraid that my blog may get deleted!

Graham at EC (if you even read our blogs): This community had a lot going for it, but within a few short months you’ve completely turned around and made EC another blue-blood country club hell-bent on stifling creative freedom and controlling blogs. I hope I don’t get deleted from EC, because I like the traffic and I love the people I have met through it (some of whom are now deleted, sad to say). I’m hoping my rant, combined with the rants of others, changes things. I think that the greed, arrogance, and exclusivity have gone too far.