My older sister aka Aunt E celebrated her birthday this week. Here’s to many more happy and healthy ones.

This week is the third year in a row that my sons will attend the Dallas Auto Show. My older son loves, loves cars. The younger one likes cars, but nothing like big brother. Part of it probably comes from his wanting to be like big brother. Older son loves Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches. Uh oh. I can’t resist this upcoming cliché. You’ve been warned… “Oh, my.”

Bet we’ll have a couple of more model cars coming home to join the collection.

Struggling to make Springpad or Evernote seamlessly work with my process so I can stop relying on Gmail drafts and contacts for notes. Now that I have a tablet, I’ve been looking into this. Springpad requires having the web site open to edit or read notes. Evernote isn’t free. I have Gmail open all the time, so it’s easy to access drafts and contacts (I have notes in contacts). Downside is that you can’t view drafts on other devices. How do you organize your notes?

Brain food…

• What do newspapers pay? WordCount talks newspaper pay rates and shares resources.
• Emotionally intelligent signage on a box: Talk about thinking outside of the box. Brilliant.
• QR Code Generator: Other than the obvious, who’d use this? How?
• Top 100 Social Media Colleges: I love reading about colleges and checking out their programs… that is, until now. Oldest starting the college search thing. That takes the fun out of it. [Link: Mazi]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Yarn Ferrari: Patience in action.
• Cover Letters from Hell: Love the side comments from the editor, too. [Link: Deb Ng]
• Star Wars If Dr. Seuss Had Created It: Guess who would say, “This body is old, but it’s all I’ve got. When 900 you, reach, look so good, you will not!”
• 8 Actors Who Look Exactly the Same on Every Movie Poster: Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Jet Li, Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise.
• Google Exodus: Hilarious video. In honor of the upcoming Passover and another viewing of The Ten Commandments (Affiliate).

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One thing about working for myself — no worries about April Fool’s pranks. But I do have kids and one in particular likes to pull stuff. Full alert! Here are some great April Fool’s office pranks [Link: Marc Harty] — fun ‘n safe. #37 cracked me up. What’s your favorite April Fool’s prank?

Legoland Discovery Center rocked. It blew away this adult who has seen many incredible creations. See a taste of MINILAND in the below Dallas skyline picture. That’s only part of it. It also had famous buildings from Fort Worth, my hometown.

A lot of GREAT stuff this week… so go explore.

Brain food…

• On writing: authors reveal the secrets of their craft:  Love Ian Rankin’s response to writer routines. “I have days when I do*bleep* all. I sit down at a computer, nothing’s coming, I’m having to tear each word out, it’s like digging for coal, and I’ll go: ‘No, this isn’t working,’ and I’ll just walk away.”  [Link: Kristin Bair O'Keeffe]
• The last freelance resource article that you will EVER have to read: Nice round up of apps and programs ranging from invoicing and legal to client management and project management.
• Champing at the bit: That’s not a typo. It’s champing, not chomping. [Link: Amber Naslund]
• Work Life Balance in the Home Office: I wear the same thing daily, so the clue to my kids that I’m at work is sitting in my office. It works so well that on a Saturday, my son asked, “Why are you working?” [Link: Alan K'necht]
• Freelance writing jobs: Top 10 places to find quality work: So many awful sites out there — good list to have as starting point.
• The secret to freelance work/life balance isn’t so secret: I’ve created a schedule and that makes a big difference to sticking with things. Need to grow “cheer team” to include writers.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Last Supper: 17 of the Best Parody Illustrations: Love the iPod / iPhone picture.
• 10 Real Cars Inspired by Cartoons: Donald Duck car = thinking of my dad. (He talked Donald Duckish to kids and his family spoiled him with a ton of Donald Duck stuff.)
• Cover Tune Grab Bag – “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”: This Beatles song is one of the few I can follow. This simple yet powerful video made me smile all over. [Link: Mark Hurst]
• Noma Bar’s Negative Space Illustrations: You’ve probably seen the young woman / vase picture. Here’s more. Neat, but my eyes have readjusting to do. [Link: Fred Schlegel]
• 3eanuts, Cinema Nutrition and WikiBomb: Three of the websites featured in 7 Sites You Should Be Wasting Time on Right Now. Who knew Peanuts could fall deeper into despair? Just cut the last panel in 3eanuts and it does. You’ll never look at movies the same way again after studying up on your cinema nutrition. Wikibomb captures Wikipedia pages before they’re taken down. In other words, Wikipedia vandalism vandalism.
• The Writing Process: Graph depicting the process of writing a feature. Just needs a ::headbang:: in there somewhere. What? You haven’t noticed a lot of writers walk around with dents on their foreheads? At least, I do [Link: Mridu Khullar]

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Meryl's dad in USAF: Yes, that's a ciggie. He quit smoking not long after.

Thanks to veterans everywhere for defending our country at all costs. Two of the most important men in my life served in the USAF: My dad and my husband. Also, thanks to the brave soldiers at Fort Hood who put their lives on the line to capture the shooter.

Win Therese Walsh’s captivating novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, and Vote for your top 25 books on writing…

Articles full of brain goodness…

• The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening: I love the examples shared in this article.
• The Zeno: Poetry form by J. Patrick Lewis [Link: Greg Pincus].
• Writers and Financial Woes: What’s Going On: Why some writers see their finances melting.
• First Lines That Make You Read More: And not one is what we’ve all heard like The Tale of Two Cities‘ opening line [Link: Debbie Ohi]
• Three Reasons Why You Should Read Debut Novels: Just read two (The Last Will of Moira Leahy and Thirsty; both fabulous and memorable reads.) [Link: Lara Wells]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 50 Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years: Did they read my mind? They caught some of the more popular cars that I thought weren’t purty.
• Which Religion Should I Follow flow chart: If you’re dealing with the December dilemma, here’s your answer. Wow… I had no idea some people think underwear is magical. [Link: Deb]
• 15 Strange and Bizarre Gifts for the Weirdos in Your Life: Ahem… some not safe for work.
• Michael Jackson’s Thriller: Lego-style [Link: BitRebels]
• Sesame Street Remixes: Me love Sesame Street. My mom says that I was an early reader partly because of the show. I wonder how I pulled that off considering I can’t read monsters’ lips. And of course, captions weren’t around yet. Sesame Street lollipops.

• Easy on the Hooptedoodle: How to be invisible when writing a book. You know… show instead of tell. [Link: The Blood-Red Pencil]
• Exposing Some Myths About Blogging Pay Rates
• 7 Ways to Rediscover Your Dreams
• Book Marketing 2.0: 5 ways you can use Web 2.0 tools to promote your book
• Namechk: See if a user name is available across many social networks.
• Twitter Logo Generator [Link: Crenk]

• Best Sites for Used Cars: Daughter has driver’s permit. Not gonna get her a new car. If anything, she’ll inherit hubby’s car once he gets a replacement.
• Star Trek does opera: Khannnnn! in Italian.
• Emo Babies: Not emo as in wearing black, but showing their feelings and emotions. Very cute.
• Wanna See a Kindle 2?

• How much should you get paid to blog: Good article even though it includes a quote from me.
• Going full-time: Four things you’ll miss from the day job
• 5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter
• Live Blogging: Getting Organized: See one person getting organized in action. Danged paper cuts!
• The One About Trains, Tweets & Lying Down in Public: Retain your sanity in this world of too much information.
• Tracks: Do you have yours figured out?

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Get ready to say good-bye to these car models especially the gas guzzling Hummer H2 [Link: Tumblemoose]
• Human records: Guinness gone crazy
• This Is Sand: Play with sand of all colors. Hint: Click on dot in upper left-hand corner for instructions.
• How to Clean Stuff: Start cleaning no matter the season.
• Damn Interesting: Trust me — interesting facts that I can’t begin to explain.

David Strom wrote fascinating editorial regarding formats and provides a historical lesson (ah, the old days of floppies… first black, then green, orange, red, and blue). Imagine if an automotive company decided to produce a car that uses a new kind of gasoline—not leaded, unleaded, or diesel— a brand new one also manufactured by the company.

How stupid would that be? Customers won’t buy the car knowing it limits their gasoline options and the places to go for filling up the car. The company thinks it can make more money by requiring its brand of gasoline for the car. Let’s try to spell it out as I am lousy with numbers.

Note: An average car puts on 10,000 miles. We’ll give this car a rate of 15 miles per gallon (higher than SUVs and lower than energy efficient cars).

5 cars using the company’s gasoline purchased
One car costs $10,000
Gas costs $2.20 per gallon
15 miles per gallon
667 gallons per year
Gas cost for one year: $1467

Company earns $57,335 for five cars and gas.

But if ABC Automotive had brains, it would build a car that uses the standard unleaded fuel. People like the car and since it works with standard fuel, the gasoline barrier doesn’t exist. Thus, more people buy the car.

6 cars using standard fuel purchased
One car costs $10,000

Company earns $60,000 without selling gasoline. However, it’s likely to sell more than six cars since the gasoline barrier doesn’t exist. It’s only a one car difference and the company makes more money.

We haven’t covered competition. Someone out there will duplicate the gas and offer it for a lower price, thus taking money away from the company.

My point? Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft do this with their game consoles. I had considered the Sony Clie, but one factor prevented my buying it… the memory stick. I don’t like its limitation of working with only Sony products.

When we wanted to get Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), which only comes with PS2 and Xbox—we learned PS2 had better DDR choices, but Xbox had a better collection of games and features. Imagine how much more money each company could make if the software could work on both systems? But the software development companies stand at the mercy of the hardware companies. Hence, many games have a version for various platforms including the PC and the handheld devices.

But it’s gaming and they are going to make it proprietary. The companies want it that way. The PSP is Sony’s jump into the handheld gaming arena where Nintendo has a monopoly.

The 5.25 floppy was not a standard when it came out. The standard was 8″ floppies. 5.25 became the standard when the two biggest bullies on the block (Microsoft for software and IBM for hardware) got in bed together and made it the standard by sheer market dominance. Same thing here.

Nintendo has the dominance in the handheld arena. Sony wants in on the action… SO what do they do? Sony creates its own handheld and format
(UMD – Universal Media Disk). Furthermore, a couple movie companies Disney, Columbia (Surprise! Sony-owned) will produce movies in the format. So Sony is furthering its efforts by having their movie company make movies for the format. Disney just jumped on board.

Until a uber-dominate power is in place, you are going to have the multiple formats. HDTV has been around since 1996 or so. The “standard” has finally settled will be in wide distribution 2007. I expect gaming to take much longer… if ever.