Our home page now features a section we're calling "Feed Your Head." It's designed to bring you a small daily dose of interesting material on a variety of subjects as well as some linguistic fun to challenge your brain a bit. This material is provided to us by The Free Dictionary, where you can find even more fun facts to fill up your mental filing cabinet.

Also, especially for all our writer and student visitors, we now offer you the ability to search Merriam-Webster's online dictionary and thesaurus straight from our site. You'll find that at the bottom of our home page. Happy word-hunting!

Labels: Think Tank

27 November, 2006

...the consensus here is that $79 is a ridiculous amount to pay for the new boxed set, particularly when he just released a "best of" double CD only three years ago. Granted, there are a lot of extras (many video clips and so on), and the cover art is beautiful and well-suited for this long-time voyager. However, since I already have the CDs included in this set, my only interest was in the unreleased live tracks and remix versions - many of which can be had on iTunes without having to buy the whole thing.

I promised our esteemed senior editor that I wouldn't draw any conclusions about the title Nine Lives coincidentally being the same as an album title used a few years back by another band with a penchant for releasing "best of" albums as often as some people change socks.

Labels: Music

26 November, 2006

Knoxville poet Jonita Jett has just sent us some new work to share with you. It'll be included in the next Wordscapes update, but in the meantime I'll post one here for you to get a sample of her work.

Springtime Early Morning
by Jonita Jett

A stale air swirls around
the chair I sit in. It's
midnight as I look through one
of Anais Nin's diaries. The
clock chimes twelve times.

Read the rest...

Labels: Poetry

19 November, 2006

Someone recently told me about Steve Pavlina and his website, and I've finally made the time to check it out. In case you aren't familiar with it, the site is called "Personal Development for Smart People." It's full of all sorts of articles and resources on personal growth, and one of the things that I really like about it is that Steve seems very different from a lot of the self-proclaimed self-help gurus out there. For one thing, the information is sound stuff that you can try yourself without any training or seminars - you don't need anything but an open mind and the willingness to make an honest effort. You don't have to register or become a member of anything to explore the site; you don't have to buy a book or a set of CDs or DVDs that you know you'll watch once (maybe) and then toss back into the closet. The philosophy is very laid-back; he simply shares stories about his own experiences and ideas, and if you can use them, great.

An added bonus is the "Audio" section of his site, where you can listen to free podcasts right online or download them to listen to later. Currently there are seventeen available, varying in length; all are intriguing and will definitely make you think. (It's not necessary to listen to them in order either.) I downloaded several and have been listening to them at work. There's not a bit of "filler" - every single one has plenty of thought-provoking ideas as well as suggestions on how to best implement the mental exercises for your own needs.

Three of the podcasts are done by Steve's wife Erin, who has her own site. While his is geared more toward people interested in making life changes in the areas of work and personal growth, hers has more of a paranormal flavor. I enjoyed it as well; if you've had any experiences like that yourself, or just find the subject interesting, you'll want to check out the site. She's very matter-of-fact about what her work as a medium, and the articles she's posted on her site are thoughtful and well-written, with just the right touch of humor.

Links:
www.stevepavlina.com
www.erinpavlina.com

Labels: Think Tank

11 November, 2006

Last weekend my daughter was home from college. She's taken up walking in the mornings, not because she needs the exercise (she has the metabolism of a hummingbird) but because she'd decided that it was easier to walk from her apartment to classes at the university than to circle the various parking lots, hoping to find an empty space. She likes to sleep in, and none of her classes start before 10 a.m. By that time, she tells me, there's not a prayer of finding a parking space within a mile of the campus. She also told me when I asked, that no, the university would not refund the $35 parking-sticker fee I'd paid for at the beginning of the semester. When her mother overheard, this instigated a rather animated family discussion about how much it could possibly cost to pave or gravel a 300-square-foot spot and how universities all over the country must be racking up big bucks by requiring students to have parking decals without providing adequate parking facilities. But that's another story.

Read the rest...

Labels: Think Tank

05 November, 2006