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!

I have the fondest memories of field day in elementary school. All the classrooms would have their own shirts with their teacher’s name and a mascot. I’ve been a Haines Hound, Vickers Viking and Strickland Spartan. We competed against other homerooms in the same grade levels and won ribbons at the end of the day. I still have my good sportsmanship ribbon from first grade. Probably the only time I ever deserved it

Imagine my surprise when I went to field day at our main elementary school when my daughter was in first grade (she’s in ninth now). The whole school wears one t-shirt (there may be color variations) and there are no ribbons or anything. Just a fun day with lots of group activities ending with a teacher’s tug-of-war. I think it’s a wonderful way to emphasize good sportsmanship and having fun while exercising.

• Tips for Usability Professionals in a Down Economy (applies in an up one, too).
• Social PR Survey II: Continued disconnect between clients, agencies
• Ten Twitter Mythconceptions
• 31 Ways to Get Inspired
• Industry-specific Twitter Guides by Profession
• Styling your Lists: 20+ Brilliant How tos and Best Practices
• The Ultimate Collection of The Best Light Swirl Photoshop Brushes

• 11 Geeky Mouse Pads: I have the color code, but don’t use it as a mousepad (not enough traction).
• Invisible cat door
• *PEW PEW*, NOM NOM: An AT-AT Cake
• If Microsoft ruled the world

• Photographic dictionary: Very sleeky and useful. I know the word “blurry” too well.
• Social Butterfly Does bad grammar make you [sic]? [Yes!]
• Your Writing Is Killing Your Writing: I’m a perfectionist, hear me whimper. But I’ve learned to let go. Even if the topic doesn’t interest you, check out the picture.
• How to Handle Monumental Screwups When They DO Happen.
• How to Increase Revenue Fast! See #6 for an amazing and creative tip. Another goodie from same blog (TPE guy is awesome!): 163 Ways How To Become An Entrepreneur.
• RevenueTwoPointZero: Offers four strategies for funding journalism.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Photographs of residents in their flats in Hong Kong’s oldest public housing estate: 100 rooms, each 100 square feet in size. And to think some of us complain about 2,000+ sq. feet homes?
• FunPhotoBox: Easier and funner than Photoshopping your photos.
• Font Game: Can you figure out the fonts?
• Illusions Database: A new illusion every day.

• Surviving Spring Break Week with Kids: My debut on WebWorkerDaily. Excited to officially join the community. Or would you rather read about dealing with taxes?
• 15 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Product Advertisements: Designers amaze me.
• Tweetoclock: Find out the best time to communicate with a twitterer — when s/he is most likely to respond. Personally, I check my replies through search.twitter.com and try to catch them all, so tweet me at your convenience. Of course, some tweets may be general and not to anyone specific — Tweetoclock can help you make sure you reach certain folks at the right time in hopes they’ll notice you.
• Save the Words: Dictionaries drop hundreds of words every year. I adopted logarithmotechny: the art of calculating logarithms [Link: Beth Kanter].
• Free E-Books for Read an E-Book Week: Lists sites that have free e-books all the time. Still prefer my books printed not on a reader.
• Keep Your Salad Fresh: I love the advice to avoid cliches. I’m editing a book telling a guy’s fascinating life story, which contains many cliches. Trying to cut down.
• 25 Tax Resources for Freelance Writers: Ugh, don’t want to think about taxes… but think we must [Link: Anne Wayman].

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Torah in Haiku: Now that’s something I can read! [Link: Rebecca's Pocket]
• Down for Everyone or Just Me? Sometimes cached pages trick us or a slow internet.
• Dallas Diamonds football team in the Independent Women’s Football League: Great folks!
• Three Cups of Tea: Amazing story about a man who helps build secular schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

• Is Updated Technology Important to Productive Work? Unless you’re a designer using resource demanding software, a software reviewer (then I recommend installing and using them on a secondary computer instead of your main one), or using a 10-year-old computer — then this sounds like another excuse from a procrastinator.
• DIY marketing is not always cheapest.
• Massive List of Killer Freelancing Tips.
• The Design Process Of Creating A $40,000 Creative Newspaper Advertisement: Love seeing Jacob’s thought process in action.
• Great explanation on Law of Attraction.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites: My client’s site, RadioTime, made the list.
• Thank you to Customized Engraving for the lovely keychain with my name on it.
• Kids, This Is What We Call “Scapegoating”: Hilarious. Moms and Dads — ya gotta see this one. Good or bad parenting… be danged… simply funny.
• Photoshop Disasters.

• Create a Rock-Solid Tagline That Truly Works: Want the next “Just do it?” Try these tips.
• 3 Ways to Appeal to Readers and Skimmers: I think many places go overboard on bolding including this article, but otherwise its tips are on the money.
• Should You Write What You Don’t Know? I think it works well for some situations. In other cases, it could cost you more time (for researching and understanding). But if it’s a topic you’d love to learn about — then it might be worth the tradeoff. [Link: Writing Resource Center]

And for fun because you’re allowed.

• Top 10 amazing chemistry videos.
• Add interaction to videos with Asterpix.
• Photoshop Disasters: Dang good stuff. How the heck do they find so many when I can’t find one?

Ooh pretty brightly-colored laptop desks ($49.95 each). I have a couple of these (not the colored ones, mind you) and they’re wonderful. Keeps the heat off my legs and gives me better access to the keyboard for doin’ lots of writing.

Choices,too. Pick clear or black rubber feet and choose between matte and semi-gloss finish. You can vote on the next design. Tough choices. If the sticker price is a bit much, spend less by sticking with the original gun-metal gray ($29.95).