Another teen hits my family. My daughter went first. My brother’s daughter turns 13 today.  She’s the only niece/nephew (Always wondered if there was one word to describe this relative category — also for aunt/uncle, too) I watch grow up because the husband’s brothers’ children are older and don’t live in the area. First cousins close in age living nearby doesn’t happen much in my family. I appreciate having her sweet self nearby to give my kids a cool first cousin they hang with at family events.

Even though my work environment in the summer isn’t the same as during the school year, I enjoy watching the Food Networks, TNTs, USA Networks and Bravos on cable TV. It’s about time someone figured out to offer first run shows in the summer. Even if some of us take vacations, few take vacations that last the entire summer or from watching TV.

Of course, I’m not saying watching lots of TV is a good thing. It’s about moderation and choosing what interests you rather than just watch anything that airs. Anyway, thanks to history lover hubby, I discovered Pawn Stars (I love the banter and learning about the history of the items brought in the shop). I also watch Top Chef (Nice to see a chef from Dallas: Tiffany Derry of Go Fish Ocean Club) and The Next Food Network Star, Psych (love the ’80s references) and decided to record The Closer‘s new season rather than waiting for the show to come out on DVDs. (I record everything to watch while doing laundry or working out.)

Brain food…

• A Four Paragraph Approach to Cover Letters: Important information that goes beyond what the book is about.
• No More Mattress: Where to Put Your Retirement Money: Finance information overwhelms many of us. LaToya Irby does a nice job of explaining the different options so you can at least narrow down the list.
• Promote Your Book on Facebook with a Fan Page: Of course, make it about them not you — just like successful social media users do.
• How to Choose a Domain Name That Works: Great advice except I don’t recommend Sedo. I used the service once and very disappointing plus they automatically put you on mailing list and I had trouble getting off.
• Super-Powered Book Proposals Secret #1: There Is No Try. Do! Tell ‘em, Jane!

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 10 Most Exotic Fruits: Wow, I’ve heard of some of these thanks to Food Network. In fact, the magosteen appeared on Chopped. I tasted my first pomegranate at age eight. I remembered it as sweet, but have yet to taste as good a pomegranate as my first one. Besides, that stuff stains easily if you’re not careful.
• 15 Funniest Accidentally Naughty Headlines: Are they all really accidental or Freudian slips? As a writer, I know how you get wrapped up in content that you don’t realize you have a typo (as in too vs to) or write a sentence that has another meaning.
• 115 Movies About Writers, Writing and/or the Writing Life: Excellent list … sometimes a good movie revolving around writing can inspire and renew. I picked up a couple tips from The Shipping News.
• Motivational Posters from the Movies: Love, love Office Space. Seen the James T. Kirk before — makes me laugh every time.
• Keyboard Quiz: No peeking!! Eyes on the monitor.

Affiliate Big Fish Games celebrating milestone of ONE Billion downloads with its Big Fish Games Collection on SALE from July 24 through 26, 2010. Enter coupon code ONEBILLION into the coupon code box when you check out to apply the discount.

• PC Games
• Mac Games

What’s your favorite TV show and why?

Congratulations to George Angus for winning Laura Cross’ book tour contest! Y’all can still win a book from Elisa Lorello. Interesting that it’s President’s Day week. My 5th grade son has to do a report on Gerald Ford.

Brain food!

• Wordnik: Make word lists, comment on and tag words, record pronunciations, etc. [Link: Michael C. Cordell]
• Value of School Visits: Enjoyed reading this author’s story about visiting schools. This is one reason why I wish I’ve authored a children’s book. I think it’d make the visit more entertaining for the kids when I speak to them about people with differences. Several school visits have made a big difference in how the kids view people who sound different from them. Apparently, after I spoke to my son’s first grade class, they treated him like a king. That’s why I do it. For my kids. To avoid the second grade incident with my daughter.
• Why Google Buzz Is Brilliant and Deadly to Social Media 1.0: Incredible insight I had not considered.
• How to Write Effectively for Twitter and the Social Web: Collection of resources sorted by categories.
• The BS Litmus Test: My first priority is to always keep my current clients happy because really — the easiest and best clients are the ones you already have. I’ve already weeded out the ones where I didn’t enjoy the work. It’s also easier to keep the current clients than go looking for new ones that may not be a good match. I know what my current clients like and don’t like. It takes time to figure that out with every new client.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 100 Cupcakes Game: Guess what game each cupcake represents. Brilliant. And great artistry.
• Slightly off-color joke: An author passes a bookstore…
• 20 Funny Examples of Graffiti and 10 Funny Pie Charts [Links: Jason Pollock]
• 12 Most Controversial Video Games: These are NOT the kind of games I cover.
• A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything: Hope they recycled all that paper.
• How Those Famous Websites Have Evolved Throughout the Years: I found Amazon in 1995, I believe (when it was just a bookstore). The screen shot is definitely not the oldest. [Link: bkmacdaddy]

• 10 Golden Lessons from Steve Jobs [Link: Pamela Poole]
• Series of articles on how people use a computer with different disabilities (look to the right for more) [Link: Laura Carlson]

• Test My Brain
• RunPee: OK, admit it. You find yourself needing to go in the middle of a good movie, but can’t decide whether to suffer a little longer or go now. Wonder no more. Next time you go to the movies, check RunPee to find out the best times to go.
• Top 10 BBQ Blogs: What kind of Texan would I be if I didn’t mention this? [Link: Michael Kogon]
• 9 Video Games That Went Too Far
• The 10 Commandments, in TXT Spk: #3: No OMGs [Link: RaToTheBec]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 10 Plagues Wine Glass Markers: Wish I had found these before Passover started.
• The Ultimate Matzoh-Ball Game
• Kosher Coke is not just for Jews: Excuse me? No, the regular Coke tastes better than the one without corn syrup. Or maybe the fact we can’t get this in cans or smaller bottles is the problem because they go flat the minute you open them.
• LED: Easter Eggs: Happy Easter to those who celebrate.
• Easter-themed Rube Goldberg Machine. From the too much time department.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Letter to the Editor: The Biggest Loser – Indeed the casual games industry needs to get along and compromise.
• Man spends 26 years solving Rubik’s Cube: Loser or incredibly patient who didn’t give up?
• The Dial Up Kid: Reliving my modem days… even I could recognize these awful sounds.
• Far Side Reenactments: Comic strip turned real life. Hubby had this original one posted in his first job.
• Sleeping Chinese: My dad would’ve loved this. He could fall asleep anywhere.
• FAIL Blog: Nation fail and Extra Fresh Fail. Need all the laughs we can get! The grocer needs to watch abbreviations!
• New Alltop Topics: Art, Museums, Books, History, and Board Games

I tried to keep the content separate, but I noticed the game’s content was showing up in the email feed. The two parts of the site attract different audiences.

Prizes!

To celebrate the official launch, I’m collecting prizes to give away to you and your friends. How big will this be? Well, when I celebrated my blog’s 8th birthday in June 2008, I collected over $5000 worth of prizes and jumped out of a plane as a thank you.

No plane jump this time (hey, I’ve had enough injuries for 2008 to last me a couple of years). Anyway, if you would like to be a sponsor, you can count on link backs to your web site from this blog, the new site, twitter, and everyone who helps spread the word.

To Sponsor

To sponsor a prize please email me (merylk [AT] game DOT] com) with the prize you generously wish to donate along with a link to your web site so I can link back and the value in $ of your prize. Here’s the 8th birthday bash final list of prizes if you need ideas.

Hold on to your codes or whatever you’re donating — we’ll work it all out later.

Excited? You betcha!

Wanna peak? Wanna give feedback? It’s all happening at TheGameZen.com.

But every single one of you offers great insight. So I’m asking if you would please take a look at the test site and provide feedback: good and needs fixin’. Ready to meet my latest baby?

http://test3.spyrestudios.com/

I want to make the launch fun and exciting for you. So I think I shall seek out prizes. Yes, the catch is that the prizes will promote the new site. Contact me if you’d like to donate a prize or two.

Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words: No preparing to die… just to know the difference between lay and lie (not included… just had to rhyme). The Princess Bride, like Copyblogger says, icky title — great movie.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Cake Wrecks: I could spend too much time on this blog.
• Coffee Art [Link: Nancy Duarte]
• 6 EXTREMEly overused game titles: Good stuff. I’d add “Deluxe.”
• Best Free Games to Play This Holiday: Games are a wonderful way to spend holiday time especially when playing with family.
• jackassletters.com: Real letters. Real replies.
• Top 12 Tech Embarrassments in 2008.

• One $80 gift certificate to Amazon from Meryl ($10 for every year).
• One $100 gift certificate to Amazon from Mark Wegner of The Diamond Games.
• Full version of Microsoft Expression Studio 2.
• Peter Shankman: copy of his book, Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them.
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media’s Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design.
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media’s Indi Young’s Mental Models.
• Problogger Darren Rowse provides a copy of his book, Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.
• AWAI’s Nick Usborne’s Million Dollar Secrets for Online Copywriting.
• Two copies of PowerReuse by Softpowerhouse, a document assembly software designed for boosting productivity for professionals.
• Access to Teaching Sells for two months from Copyblogger Brian Clark.
• How to Make a Living as an SEO Writer from Yuwanda Black.
• Tara Calishain-authored book.
• Ted Demopoulos: One copy of Secrets of a Successful Blogging System digital audiobook with What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting (in which Meryl appears).
• Airport Mania: 3 copies (2 Mac and 1 PC).
• One copy of Business Daffynitions: Humor from the Workplace from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.
• One copy of Wit and Wisdom of a Regular Joe from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.
• One copy of New Idiot-Proof Guide to Customer Loyalty from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.
• One copy of Andy King‘s Website Optimization.
• One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Two copies of Unicorn Castle Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.

How do I win?

You’ll get the following amount of entries based on the following guidelines:

• 10 entries: Become a twitter stalker/follower for MerylKEvans
• 10 entries: Link to:
  • Any meryl.net page
  • CSSCollection.com
  • Bionic Ear Blog
• 10 entries: Subscribe and activate to our RSS feed by email.
  • Subscribe to both meryl’s notes blog and games
  • Subscribe only to meryl’s notes blog
  • Subscribe only to games
  • Subscribe to Bionic Ear Blog
  • Subscribe to meryl’s notes, the newsletter (not the same thing as the above)
  • Subscribe to the games newsletter (contact me with your email address and I’ll add you — doesn’t seem to be a way to add yourself. Crazy.)
• 10 entries: Link to any meryl.net blog entry.
• 5 entries: Link to any of the following pages from a twitter tweet:
  • Any meryl.net page
  • CSSCollection.com
  • Bionic Ear Blog

You can do the above anytime between May 21 (date of birthday bash announcement) and July 15. To guarantee your entries, please email us by 11:59pm on July 15 what you’ve done and include links. Who can keep up with hundreds of entries? Also let me know if you have a Mac — gotta make sure we have winners of Mac prizes!

Remember, you can only win one of the above prizes — so it doesn’t hurt your chances to tell others about it — it increases them!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

eDrum roll, please…

<eDrum rolls>

Yuwanda Black

Ecommerce Newsletter

Congrats, you two! I will send you an email with the details.