Men: Matthew Born

A relatively unknown male with a well known body. According to this article, his body became famous overnight. He's now my youngest feature, as the article places him at a birth year of 1985. Let's not get into how old that makes me.

Chocolate: Whole Grain Chocolatey-Filled Cereal Bites

Leave it to me. Send me off to buy foods that are healthy and fit into my 1,800 calorie a day diet, and I will find something with chocolate.

A long time ago, when I bought Short & Sweet, I was exposed to Nutella for the first time. The recipe in the book was for Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse. It was tasty, but had a slight oily texture to it because of the oil in the Nutella. That didn't stop me. I became addicted. Spreading it on mountains of graham crackers was like heaven.

Then one day I overdosed. I haven't had a hankering for Nutella in ages.

Cue my low fat diet. I found Trader Joe's Whole Grain Chocolatey-Filled Cereal Bites. They are whole grain chocolate flavored squares filled with chocolate. Chocolate that tastes like Nutella. It is almost sinful when I sit down for breakfast. My lonely Kashi GOLEAN Crunch! sits on the shelf while I stuff my face with chocolate. I can't eat it often because it does have palm oil in it which is a no-no. But a break now and then can't be all bad.

Books: Books Anyone?

Seriously. I have not read any books really worthy of a post at this time. What I've been doing in my rare spare moments is going on Yahoo! Answers. (Yes, something for a miscellaneous post.) However, one post I answered centered around someone wanting more books like that of his favorite author.

My answer: Look at the book cover and the first few pages inside the cover (front and back.) There are usually reviews of the book by authors that write in the same genre or style. I also go to Amazon and look at what the other customers also bought. After I've written down some names, I can go to the library and check out the books. If I like the series or author, then I might buy them.

You've all seen me ask for suggestions here, but that didn't turn out so well.

So, just my helpful book hint of the day...okay, make that ever.

The 100th Post

This is my 100^th post! And to celebrate I'm breaking tradition, adding a new category, and deluging you with fun and interesting things!

First fun...a list of the Top 100 Websites: Classic and Undiscovered (Click on the blue box at the top left of the article for the category list). These were some I liked:
Group Greeting Cards
Snopes
Oddee, my favorite find, which has some cool stuff like treehouses, strange medical conditions, and wacky classified ads, among others.
Wikipedia and IMDb (both listed in my links)

Next fun...since everyone is jumping on the Christmas bandwagon (yes, I saw Christmas lights in stores over Labor Day) I'm putting in my winter fun. A snowflake maker. B and I spent an afternoon a few years ago making flakes. This led to a snowball fight B downloaded onto my desktop computer. Once you get the hang of it, it can be addictive. I won't give away the ending.

Some interesting links...
Pennies? An interesting look at pennies.
100 Most Often Misspelled Words is good as a reference bookmark.
Time's 2008 list of the Top 100 Most Influential People. I found the first people listed under Heroes & Pioneers verrry interesting.
An article about Monk. The series celebrated it's 100th episode (of course, I watched) on September 5.

This was too funny to pass up...the top 100 April Fool's Day hoaxes. It had me cracking up! Try the message in #18 on page two, the humor in #29 on page three, and the gullibility found in #44 or #47 on page five. #62 talks about an Esquire article in which someone offers free cars. Part of the process required filling out a 600 question survey, providing notarized video rental receipts, and submitting a stool sample. How could you fall for that? Don't read all of them at once! I mean there's 100 of them.

Okay, that's all I've got. Happy 100!

TV: Supernatural

I've been hooked on this show, Supernatural, since the beginning. Although B and I missed some episodes and had to wait for reruns. We had to have something to make up for the lack of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer in our lives. The show is about two brothers, Sam and Dean, who battle against various paranormal demons and creatures.

I have to admit, the first several episodes were like watching a horror movie. I actually cuddled up to B and covered my eyes for a few scenes. One night I was afraid to go to bed (last time that happened was because of a Stephen King book.) But as the series has unfolded, I've developed a spine of steal and the show has become a treat.

For me personally, it certainly helps to have the hunky Jensen Ackles as one of the main characters. The poor thing was stuck in hell after the Season 3 finale. It would take too long to tell how that happened. His brother, played by Jared Padalecki, was supposed to save him this season, Season 4, which began on September 18.

The season premiere was too cool. That description is pretty amazing considering I watched Ackles for most of the show :oD

Miscellaneous: Cake Wrecks

Blogs of Note strikes again! Apparently this blog is popular as it has garnered the attention of B, and he's hard to please when it comes to things I find funny. The blog is hilarious...and sad.

Let's start with hilarious. Cake Wrecks shows cakes that have crashed and burned. One example is a very realistic looking cake of a baby wrapped in a blanket. It just looks too darned realistic...it's creepy. Another is someone's warped interpretation of a camouflage cake. Yet another is a wedding cake gone wrong - so wrong that the blogger says the bride sued. Hopefully she got money for pain and suffering. I've included the comparison photos here.

The sad part is the inability of the cake decorators to read or even question what they write on cakes. If you weren't worried about the school system before...

You know the cake should have five colorful rings. Did you notice that Olympics was spelled Olynpics? Granted, the directions for the cake people likely included areas for color selection or "put exact words on these lines" and then you might have to blame the cake orderers. Really, though. Sad.

Men: Brennan Elliott

Sorry folks, but I've got nothing on Brennan except that he's adorable. You can read a little about him here and get a link to his tv/movie stats. Just enjoy!