Talk about jam packed week. I’ve done so much writing that I’m tapped out with nothing to share. I don’t want to waste your time with mindless babble. Oh, the Texas Tornadoes refers to the minor league hockey team. Family going to watch them play courtesy a generous client. (The only local client, but we met online.)

Brain food…

• Plagiarism is Not The Sincerest Form of Flattery: This is scary. Writers read a lot. So it’s plausible that ideas stick in our heads that by the time we pull them out, we think they’re original not recalling the origin of a source.
• IBM AbilityLab Voice Transcription Manager Research Project: [Link: Deborah Edwards-Onoro]
• 10 Tips on How to Find a Job the New Way: Everyone should know this regardless whether straight out of college or a long-time corporate vet. I think it was monster.com that I used in 1995 when I was looking for a job back home in Texas. Though few used it, that’s now how I landed the job. How? Word of mouth. Someone referred my husband to several companies and he connected them with me.
• How to Grow Your Reader Community with an Author Blog: Start before the book ever comes out.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• All-TIME 100 Greatest Toys: Barbie? That wasn’t my kind of toy. I preferred (still do — add flying objects, too!) remote control cars.
• Most Popular Fonts by Operating System: Still waiting for Comic Sans to be just “sans.” [Link: Bitrebels]
• 12 Funny Animal Fails: lol! (Or should that be wof — woofing out loud?)
• 12 Hilariously Ironic Signs: Hey, nobody’s erfect.
• Playable Angry Birds birthday cake: Made with a lot of patience. [Link: Mark Hurst]
• Don’t You Want Me: Atomic Tom video — how many ’80s movies can you find? [Link: Mark, too]

Ah, I got nothing today — no stories, nada. Just lots and lots of work since I had a few appointments not related to business. At least, it’s been beautiful and sunny all week.

Brain food…

• Bite-Size Edits: “Bite-Size Edits takes a text, chops it into pieces, and serves those pieces randomly to editors. Players get points for editing text, for providing useful comments, for helping to get a text completely edited.”
• Using Web Tools For Creating and Managing Contracts: Important topic. I had one client (I had worked with him before without problems) who failed to live up to his part of agreement and I had no contract for it. (I know. Shame on me.)
• How to Make Better Decisions: “Accepting ownership of consequences and balancing responsibility with your own personal goals lets you overcome stress, enabling you to making empowering decisions.”
• I wish I would have known: Answers from 11 top freelancers: Focus on designers, but applies to others including writers. I wish I would have known that my inability to use the phone like everyone else would be a big barrier to getting clients. But reflecting on my life and career — the path that got me here was the best route.
• The Five Best Mispronunciations I’ve Ever Heard: I love malapropisms every since I learned about them reading The Rivals
  . They’re fun. They inject humor in a conversation. Just heard one on NCIS this week: A character from another country said in reference to Kennedy shooting, “…shot from the book suppository.” More discussions over at Nathan Branford’s blog.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Cool and Unusual Business Card Designs: I love these round ups. Such creativity! And 10 free orange business card templates.
• 15 Entertaining Toilet Paper Designs: Notebook paper for writers. That’s productive!
• 15 photos that are real, not Photoshopped: My heart fell into my stomach looking at Dean Potter on tightrope walk in Yosemite.
• Cool Cupcake Creations: Tasty! Glad I haven’t seen these locally… they’d be tough to resist!
• Another 12 Unfortunate Logos: Aw, c’mon. How do you end up with these logos? Logo work isn’t something that’s done in five minutes and usually involves at least two people. Someone HAS to catch these!

• 64 B2B Marketing Tools and Resources
• 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.
• Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples
• GovTwit Directory: List of government peeps who use Twitter. I worked for US government right out of college. Wonder if I could’ve Twittered? Probably from home and not work. Didn’t find any from my agency in list. Nice name… “GovTwit.”
• Comment Forms Designs: Nice collection. Sure makes mine feel so 1990s.
• 2008 Eddies: Edublog awards.

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.

Here is a good laugh from my friend, Libby.

The woman who ordered the cake from Wal-Mart specified that it should read, “Best Wishes Suzanne” and underneath that, “We Will Miss You.” The result (a href=”http://meryl.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/walmart_cake.jpg”>click to view larger image):