Pink elephant sale

Ever wonder what the rich have that you don't? Now's your chance to find out if you live anywhere within driving distance of the Houston area. The River Oaks Garden Club is holding their annual Pink Elephant sale Friday, October 20, 2006.

Furniture, antiques, designer clothing, collectibles, and, oh, yes, plants - after all, this is sponsored by the garden club. Trust me, if you're into bargain sales (tag, estate, garage, yard, or rummage), this is one that's not to be missed. I'll be there.

You know what they say: one millionaire's trash is another person's treasure.

Well, something like that.

Uh oh

I started customizing Sling Words with the new Blogger stuff. Sure wish I'd taken some screen shots of how it looked before I hit the customize button.

If you haven't migrated over to Google/Blogger, make sure you know how your stuff looks on the screen before you hit customize because you have to manually input each link, etc. Once you get the info in, you can shift it around but the input is a bummer.

I changed the fonts to make them more readable on the template I use, but I noticed that this makes some of the comments titles nearly unreadable. Can't figure this out and there's no way I can find to change the color of those fonts.

Lots of work ahead.

Sling Words disgusted. Think I'll go walk in the fog.

Floodin' down in Texas, the sequel

Well, Stevie Ray isn't playing yet because I'm too busy trying to find out about road closures due to the latest flood. It's been raining at my house since Saturday night. We've been way short of rain this year so it's a good news, bad news situation. Good, because we need the rain. Bad because we don't need another flood.

Electricity is iffy today so that's all for now, folks.

Waltzing across Texas

Our vacation is mostly over, but we had a couple more stops to make so today we visited Brenham, Texas, to tour a couple of manufacturers. Lucky us! We got the nickel tour and free samples at each place.

Our first stop was Blue Bell Creamery. I love touring factories. There's just something mesmerizing about watching cans or cartons race along a track, fill with product, get sealed, packaged, crated, and shrink wrapped faster than you can say assembly line.

Blue Bell Creamery, maker of one of the world's best ice creams, is clean, modern, and a great place to visit. We got a little history, and at the end of the forty minute tour, we received a generous scoop of whatever we wanted.

I had Birthday Cake, totally to die for, with bits of frosted fudge cake mixed with vanilla ice cream. Darling Husband had Tin Roof, also to die for with chocolate covered peanuts and chocolate chunks blended with vanilla ice cream. Blue Bell Creamery tour gets a definite thumbs up! Great, inexpensive family excursion.

Now, for a more adult adventure, we stopped by Windy Hill Winery. Owner August Meitzen was gracious and hospitable. The tasting room and gift shop are interesting with their antiques and gift items ranging from original pottery and wine items to wrought iron bottle racks and more.

You can pay a tasting fee or simply buy a bottle of wine and taste for free. Since their beautiful wine label graces bottles of darn good wine, we opted to buy a bottle, well, actually, four bottles. In fact, I think these excellent sipping wines with their Texana inspired labels are going to be a major part of our Christmas gift giving this year since you can order over the Net.

After we'd sampled Windy Hill's wines, August took us around the winery and explained the growing and manufacturing process. Made me want to write a book about a winery owner and made my husband want to own a winery. I think my pursuit would be far less expensive.

So another thumbs up to the Windy Hill Winery. Great day trip for adults.

Fred Head vs. Susan Combs

I normally steer clear of politics and such. Imagine my surprise to return from vacation and discover a candidate for Texas State Comptroller has launched a political attack on his opponent based on her authorship of a contemporary romance novel.

Fred Head has branded his opponent Susan Combs as a pornographer based on a romance novel she published with Meteor Kismet many years ago.

What's wrong with this?

1. I also published with Meteor Kismet and know that none of the novels were what would be considered porn.

2. Head excerpts text from this COPYRIGHTED novel to prove his so-called point. He has scanned in the back cover copy, the author's bio page, and 3 random pages from the novel itself. This is illegal under the copyright laws of the United States unless he has permission from the copyright holder ... drum roll please ... the book's author Susan Combs. Now, I doubt Ms. Combs would grant permission for her published work to be used in this manner.

3. So this self-righteous man apparently thinks romance novels are porn AND he thinks he is above the laws of this land and can take copyrighted material and use it however he wishes without permission or remuneration to the author of said material.

You Texans out there, remember these names when you vote for Comptroller.

Fred Head who apparently thinks romance novels are porn. If he'd ever actually read one instead of just excerpting what he considers offensive sexual text, he'd have learned that romance novels are relationship novels that celebrate love and commitment. Mr. Head also seems to think he can violate the copyright laws of this nation with impunity. Or perhaps he is ignorant of what the United States Copyright laws are which is just as bad if not worse.

Susan Combs, who is a victim of copyright violation, is being called a pornographer for writing a novel about a consensual relationship between an adult man and an adult woman which leads to love and commitment. Ms. Combs is a businesswoman who apparently has served well in her current position. She's a wife and a mother, and, now, a maligned romance author.

Sometimes I get very tired of the "trashing romance novel syndrome." Romance novels are written mostly by women and for women. We're like the Rodney Dangerfield of the literary world. We get no respect. But, boy, are we popular. More than 50% of all mass market paperbacks sold are romance novels.

If Mr. Head wanted to take a stand against immorality in literature, why didn't he take on Dan Brown, an author who has written something millions consider not only morally wrong but sacriligious. So why didn't he take a swipe at Dan Brown and The DaVinci Code? Oh, right. Dan Brown isn't opposing him in a political race.

If you read this, and you are a registered voter in Texas, please feel free to check out the sites I've linked to. Pass the word or link to this blog. We don't need more politicians who pick and choose the laws they obey especially when we authors are an embattled bunch desperately fighting for our livlihood which in this electronic age is only too easily taken from us.

Harlequin's parent company news

Torstar takes a $2.5 million hit. They plan to cut employees. Just kind of reading between the lines, I don't think it's their romance publishing program that is languishing. It's the newspapers they also publish that are faring poorly in the new digital age. Ad sales revenue is probably way down.

I bet dollars to doughnuts that their romance publishing helps maintain their other enterprises. Not good for romance bottom line of course, but that's the way the world works. Hope they won't attempt to injure their golden goose in these cutbacks.

Million dollar prize

Got any code writers out there? NetFlix is offering a million dollar prize to anyone who can design a software packet.

Go for it!