I’ve heard of dueling guitars (I love the Chet Adkins and Roy Clark version!) but have never heard about dueling pianos! That sounds like so much fun! I’m talking about the piano show put on by Howl at the Moon clubs. It’s unique because it gets the audience involved, REALLY involved. The piano players crack jokes and play sing-a-long type songs so everyone in the audience can participate! And there are also “ShowTime” routines that involve the whole staff– great talent! Piano players are locally chosen for their talent and enthusiasm. Two players take the stage for an hour before a fresh team is brought in. They often get other musicians to join in, too- drums, guitar, and saxaphone!

Howl at the Moon is a friendly and fun club– a total entertainment experience, and they are prooud of the fact that getting the guests to participate in the entertainment makes everything even more fun. They have eleven locations in the United States, including Cleveland, Ohio, Orlando, Florida, Houston, Texas, and a really exceptional dueling piano bar Louisville, Kentucky. You can go to their site for more information on locations, hours open, and special celebrations. Howl at the Moon specializes in custom birthday parties and anniversary celebrations, too. Check them out for more information!

Here’s another neat quiz I took, the RealAge Test. It’s not as silly as the other quizzes I’ve done here. This is a health survey. It’s a little lengthy, so be sure to set aside 5-10 minutes if you do it. A lot of the questions are based on what you eat, your family’s health background, your activity, and your habits. I was surprised to see a whole page devoted to things that cause stress, something I don’t often see in health tests. I was actually doing pretty well until I got to that page! :S

After you take the test, they ask for your email and send you your results. I am pretty healthy for a woman my age– I’m stronger and have more endurance than my kids, due to my extremely active lifestyle as a youth (felling trees, rollerskating every day, walking up and down mountains, etc). So I’ve still got a lot of pep in me, I tell ya!  I’m *only* showing up as one year older than I really am, due to the stress level. So, I know where I need to improve!

The website also has some other things for health-conscious folks, like tips on healthy eating and exercising, relieving stress, and offers for coupons and more. Looks like a good resource for health stuff! So if you want to test your age according to your health, take the RealAge Test! It’s free!

I used to be an actress. I went to drama school in Manhattan for a year. It was TOUGH. I thought I’d like it (I always liked playing make-believe as a kid), but there’s a lot more to standing on stage in front of an audience. You really have to market yourself. About the time I realized this, I decided I didn’t want to continue this kind of career, anyway.

I did have a few exciting parts in some smaller plays, and I was cast as an extra in a feature film. Ever hear of “A Christmas Rose”? From what I remember being told of the story, it was about a dysfunctional community brought together by a little girl (kind of like Pollyanna), but the little girl is hit by a car and near death. If I remember correctly, an angel (played by Della Reese) comes to help the little girl and tries to help the community’s problems. It starred Randy Travis, too. This was way back in the late 1980s that it was filmed. The movie never got to the box office, though. It was shelved for a long time, until the producer sold it as a TV series, “Touched By an Angel.” Funny, huh? I didn’t earn anything from the stint. It was just a day’s work and it was exciting to be exposed to the movie-making experience, to a 17-year old girl.

Movie makers are always looking for extras. Sometimes they pay, sometimes they don’t. If you have good connections (a friend of a friend of a friend) who hear of someone looking for casting extras, you’ve got your chance. But sometimes, if you are serious about starting a career, you need to link up with a group or an agent. Agents are very expensive, so most people join casting groups, like Talent6.

At Talent6, you can build a profile with their help, and they will distribute your photo and resume to casting directors who come calling. You usually have to invest in building a profile– very few casting agencies will do it for free. Just like hiring a publisher or joining a modeling agency, you need some capital to invest in your career and to market yourself. Talent6 is looking for new people of all ages, if you are interested. Their toll-free phone number is 800-493-9047, or you can visit the website.

How’s your computer filter? If you don’t have one, you’re playing with fire. If you use a fancy, DELUXE government-sponsored one, guess what? Kids can crack them.

A MELBOURNE schoolboy has cracked the Federal Government’s new $84 million internet porn filter in minutes.

Tom Wood, 16, said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the Government’s filter, released on Tuesday.

The government spent $84 million for a filter that doesn’t even work?! What a disgrace!

Porn is everywhere. Even thinking of it makes my spine shudder. Ick, it’s disgusting. Sometimes it gets into your computer without your permission, and sometimes it’s there because someone, uh, downloaded it. And I am concerned that my kids will accidentally come across it should they misspell a url address. Pornographers specifically target little kids, did you know that?

Protect your computer and your family– check out SurfRecon. SurfRecon works with your filtering software as an added weapon– it scans your computer files to detect porn in your computer. You will know if porn is getting through your filter and be more informed about what’s going on in your family’s Internet activities. Save yourself a lot of grief and get geared up. Even if nothing is going on, you’ll be protected and have peace of mind.

My dear friends in other countries– I have GREAT news for you. I’ve read on a few of your blogs that you love to buy things from the U.S. (especially now that our dollar is a disaster in the currency tarde!) but you still can’t ship your stuff to your home country, because many shipping companies won’t ship outside the U.S. So, unless you have a rich relative or can visit the U.S. and wink your way through customs- you’re stuck.

Guess what? Use ShipItTo.com– they have solved this problem! You can ship your package to their special USA address, and they will ship it on to you, wherever you are in the world.

ShipItTo.com notifies you by email when they receive your package. From there, you can use their shipping calculator and choose how you want your package mailed to you. ShipItTo.com uses the reliable shipping companies, too– FedEx, United States Postal Service Priority, or Express. This helps to cut costs and save you the bucks. Or Euros. Or yueng. Or lira. All that stuff.

Check out the site for more details; I think it’s a great idea and solves a lot of the shipping problems you guys have been blogging about. Also, you can check the site for an affiliate program to make a little money on the side with ShipItTo.com, as well.

Charter Internet service is having the best contest giveaway I’ve seen: win a 2009 Civic Hybrid car worth $24,000! Wooohoo! We need another car, that’s for sure. The specs on this car make my heart go a-flutter:

Polished Metal Metallic
Up to 45 mpg highway
Fabric interior
USB Audio Interface
110-hp, 8 valve, SOHC i-VTEC® 4-cylider engine
Continuously variable transmission
MP3 Auxiliary Input Jack

My Internet service with my current provider is about to expire, next month. I’ve been shopping around because honestly– I don’t think I’ve been getting what I paid for. The service is sooooo slow. I work online all day, and where once I was able to tolerate slow loading times for, say, reading the news– it’s unbearable waiting for pages to load while I work.

I’ve heard rave reviews about Charter service. They offer high speed Internet, telephone, and television service for some great deals. They have a great deal right now, $29.95 a month for 6 months on high speed Internet at speeds up to 5Mbps (that’s almost what I pay right now for my existing service, but am getting only a fraction of the speed!)

Plus, Charter Internet service is “going green” with their hybrid car giveaway. I love hybrids, and I love Hondas. So maybe I’d win! :D Either way, I know I’d win with getting Charter Internet service. See here for contest details.

It was great to get out of the house last week. My husband and I went window shopping for household items. The aisles were filled with racks of costumes in preparation for Halloween; some of the prices were so expensive! Why do people still buy retail?

We don’t do Halloween here, although I like to occassionally visit online discount Halloween Costume Stores. My kids just LOVE to dress up. They are beginning to make skits and funny home movies with the camcorder (some of the skits are outrageous funny) and they love costumes and love to fool around. As evidenced by the photo below.

So this is a great time to look for costumes! No witches or devils in our wardrobe– the kids prefer historical characters, soldiers and military outfits, and animal duds. I’m always looking for good costumes and props (what’s in now for the kids are wigs, lol!). I don’t know what it is about kids and dressing up- my children have always loved it, so we have a lot of props and various costume pieces laying around. My son’s favorite costume was a Batman costume. He even wore it to bed! He was so sad when he grew too big for it. It’s a good thing for fast and easy returns if necessary, if a costume you ordered is too small. And if you click on the HalloweenAdventure.com store link above, check out their free shipping on orders over $60 (good until until 10/10/08). Dressing up and getting costumes is a year-round thing! Take advantage of good deals and sales now!

I’ve looked at the calendar and realized that, since late July, I have spent more time with my feet up (due to the herniated disk in my back) than on my feet. :| UGH. That’s a lot of time laying around. No wonder my gardens are riddled with weeds… Anyone who knows what it’s like to be on bed rest knows that it STINKS after 3 or 4 days. I am a writer– I write articles and advertisements– and do a lot of typing on my computer. It has been a very difficult task, typing while reclining.

While at the doctor’s office, I noticed one of the doctors talking into a handheld recording device. He was talking about someone’s condition and was taking verbal notes onto the recorder, to be transcribed later. I thought, “I want something like that for my computer!” I could talk, and my words could be recorded as type into my computer. Not only would it save loads of time (everyone I know talks faster than they type), it would be so wonderful for someone like me, where typing is almost impossible in a reclined position.

Guess what? Some cool guy already invented such a thing! I am floored by the technology. It’s called Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred. You talk, the software spits your words onto a document. It’s pretty amazing! Here’s the NY Times Review of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for more information; and here’s a video of the program in action:

I can see how this would help so many people! Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard enables you to “verbally type” up to 150 words per minute without forming blisters on your fingertips (or your keyboard smoking, ha!). And this could constitute a whole new world for people who podcast or need transcriptions, such as the doctor I saw in the office.

A verbal program would take some getting used to, I suppose. But it would mean much faster writing and transcription. And it would also mean that I wouldn’t have to crane my neck to type while lying in bed. :D I think it’s terrific! What do you think?

The neatest thing happened to me over the weekend. As some of you know, I got my little half-Siamese kitten Thursday. It was a bit of a surprise– earlier this week, a friend had directed me to a classified ad advertising some kittens. The next thing I know, I’m driving out on Thursday to pick up my kitten. She’s a lovely little thing; we’ve named her Olivia (Livvy, for short).

Well, today the FedEx man walked up to my door and dropped off a box. Guess what it was? A brand new cat carrier! With a few bottles of Febreze samples! And one of them is the new Febreze Air Effects Pet Odor Eliminator! I flipped! It’s pretty obvious that Livvy loves her new carrier, too.

This package was PERFECT timing! And I think that the Febreze Pet Odor Eliminator is going to be my new best friend, and an important piece of equipment along with the pooper-scooper and bag of catnip. :D I have a very sensitive nose and the smell of cat litter makes it wrinkle. I am nuts about Febreze (I always get pre-owned furniture and it is always stinky– so I have loads of Febreze around the house) because it smells so good and works on fabrics (Lysol makes me gag, ick). The pet odor eliminator has a really fresh scent and it won’t make Livvy’s little nose curl, either. One pump on the nozzle and you’re good. It’s a great product.

The Febreze To Go is a new product in the line of Febreze stuff. I keep it in my minivan. My husband is a mailman and uses our van to deliver mail, so… during the summer the van gets REALLY stinky (sorry, honey). I like this little bottle because now I can tuck it in the glovebox instead of having that big bottle of Febreze that rolls and clunks around inside the van while we drive.

So if you have a cat or a dog or a sweaty husband (hee), you might want to give Febreze a try. It has helped me out of the stinkiest situations. And now that I have an indoor cat with a litter box in the house, I’m sure it will be worth its weight in gold. :D

For us in the Northern Hemisphere– it’s baaaack! Autumn, and winter is on the way! I love autumn– it’s so colorful and the air is crispy clean. And I prefer cooler temperatures. However, as autumn turns to winter, my skin gets horribly, horribly dry. It’s so bad that my hands crack and bleed. No skin lotion seems to help. Last year I relegated myself to rubbing olive oil on my hands (and that stuff is not cheap. Not to mention I couldn’t keep the dog away from me, lol). But I got a free sample of skin lotion in the mail recently and have been trying it out. It’s Skin MD Natural, and it’s great! It has no fragrance (something I dislike about other stinkier lotions) and has natural ingredients like purifed water, aloe vera leaf extract, Vitamin E, Arnica, Comfrey, Chamomile, and more. This stuff is marketed as helping people with extreme psoriasis and eczema. A few applications a day has seemed to help my hands.

Now I’m not going to kid you– this stuff is not cheap. It’s $18 a 4 ounce bottle, and that doesn’t include shipping. But the folks at Skin MD Natural guarantee that you will love their lotion, and if not, you can return the bottle for a refund. That’s quite a guarantee! And I think it’s a good buy overall, because despite the small bottle, you don’t have to gob it on like you do with the WalMart cheapo lotions. And after a day or two of application, you should start to see a difference right away– so you use less of it, anyway. The price tag might scare some, but I have some good news for you Frugal Hacks– if you are willing to blog about the product with a review, the guys at Skin MD Natural will give you a bottle for free! I think that’s a GREAT deal. And the lotion is very good; out of all the lotions I have ever tried (and I have tried a lot), Skin MD Natural is the best. You can read some testimonials from people who also liked it, here. It’s also the only company that guarantees you will love the lotion or your money back.

If you’re interested, you can try some free samples (small envelopes) before jumping in with both feet. But I think it’s a good buy, and this lotion is the only stuff that has helped my hands. It doesn’t sting going on, and it doesn’t smell like baby diapers, either! Check it out here.

If you are interested in blogging about Skin MD Natural, email Pete Grimaldi at petegrimaldi@earthlink.net with your blog url and mailing address.