Does this really matter THAT much?
Posted by Dana on Jul 23, 2008
Taken from IMDB
Craig Adds Inches For Bond 20 July 2008 7:03 AM, PDT
James Bond star Daniel Craig was forced to wear stacked heels during the making of the new 007 film - because his co-star Gemma Arterton is so much taller than him.
The actor stands 5 foot 10 inches tall (1.9 metres) but comes up short when 5 foot 7 inch (1.7 metre) Arterton wears high heels - so movie bosses insisted the star add some extra inches with a pair of special shoes.
Arterton insists that Craig was forced to wear the stacked heels in all of her scenes with her in forthcoming Bond movie Quantum of Solace.
She says, “Daniel is 5ft 10in but when you put me in heels, I was taller than him and it didn’t look good on screen. The whole point of Bond is that he is masculine and hunky.
“And he has to be taller than his girlfriend. Daniel had to wear special shoes with a lift in them and stacked heels for a few scenes.”
But the actress admits Craig is unfazed by his height issues.
She adds, “He took it very well. He thought it was funny. I teased him about it. He took it on good humour.”
****END ARTICLE****
So I have to ask. How do you feel about this?
Lucky Sevens- How to Become a Romance Yoda
Posted by Dana on Jul 22, 2008
This is actually an old blog I wrote for my OCC Chapter blog but I’m reposting it in anticipation of RWA National Conference. It is posted verbatim from HERE
Hi! I’m Dana! I’m a (relative) newbie to romance writing. The good thing about being in my position is that nice people in the industry, particularly in OCC, take pity on me and explain things. Unfortunately, it also means I’m unpublished and constantly have to justify to my friends and family 1) why I’m still unpublished, and 2) why I’m not best friends with Nora Roberts.
After months of answering questions, I finally streamlined a hierarchy of romance writing and my place in it so I could copy, paste and email it to people. It’s worked really well for me so I decided to share.
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Have an idea. Step 1 is fun and easy. Anyone who has ever said, “Wouldn’t XX be a neat story?” has achieved step one.
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Write your book. I know it sounds like a jump but it’s not. You either have a book…or you don’t. Scary but true. You’re a storm trooper just plodding along and doing your job.
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Submit your book for rejection…I mean publication. A majority of first books are rejected but the key is getting to a place where you have something you can submit. Basically, you’re Anakin Skywalker chafing at your boundaries and wishing you could fly.
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Once you’re rejected (odds are you will be) you submit a copy of your manuscript and proof of submission to your local RWA chapter for Pro status. A “PRO” designation means you get a pin and are considered one of the “in” crowd. You’re Luke Skywalker and someone handed you a lightsabre. You don’t know what to do with it but you feel cool and that’s all that matters right?
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If you are published you get a PAN designation and your very own book! With your name on it!. “PAN” stands for Published Authors Network. That means not only are you a member of the “in” crowd you are one of the cool kids and other writers look to you for help. Yup, you’re a Jedi.
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Multi-published? Then you’re a Jedi Master. People ask your advice and you (probably) secretly refer to yourself as Obi-Wan.
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So what’s left? Hit the bigtime and the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Your books sell thousands of copies even if people don’t know what the plot is yet. You’re Yoda, who cares if you’re less than three feet tall? People stalk you in elevators at conference.
Wouldn’t that be a great biography? “The Inner Yoda: My Journey to Romance Superstardom.” If someone beats me to it I expect full credit for the title!
FINALLY!
Posted by Dana on Jul 22, 2008
There are a number of things every female celebrates. A good date, a great pair of shoes, and a purse purchased for half price. HALF PRICE!
Oakley has solved all of my purse problems by creating a bag that is big enough to fit all my stuff without giving me shoulder problems. Yes, it’s a miracle. Particularly since I have an unfortuante allergy to leather. (No really I break out in hives and it’s horrible!) Have you ever tried to find a decent purse that doesn’t at least have leather trim? It’s practically impossible! So you can imagine my delight when I found a purse without leather that didn’t look like a gunny sack.
Without further ado I give you the Journey Bag.
This picture really doesn’t do it justice. I should also mention I bought it in black and not crimson. I’m not really a pinkish purse kind of person. LOL.
Ohhh and the best part? Do you know why they call it the journey bag? Because it is full of passport stamps on the inside! As a certified passport stamp junkie I am delighted! 
Did I mention I bought it for half price?
So there you have it: finding a decent bag on markdown made my day. And guys think we’re complicated!
Blogging at OCCRWA
Posted by Dana on Jul 21, 2008
Let’s put it this way, the title of the blog is “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”
Click on the picture to see why!
How cool is this
Posted by Dana on Jul 20, 2008
An entire dorm creates a snake game! You might need a facebook account to see it, but it’s totally cool!
Watch SNAKE
(Like you didn’t already know I’m a geek)
Not Going to Conference Conference
Posted by Dana on Jul 20, 2008
The Romance Divas presents their annual Not Going to Conference Conference for those of us missing out on the RWA National Conference in SF. *sniffle* There are amazing workshops, a star-studded guest list and awesome giveaways, all on the Diva forum! (you have to register but registration is free!) Don’t miss it!
The schedule…
Wednesday, July 30
Paula Guran, Editor, Juno Books
Q&A on Creating Kick a** Heroines
Laurie Rauch, Editor, Samhain Publishing
Workshop on What Happens After the Contract (aka Editors are People Too!)*
Thursday July 31
Joyce Hart, Hartline Literary
Q&A on Inspirational Romance Stories and the Inspy Market
Sandra Schwab, Historical Romance Author
Workshop on Historical Accuracy and Anachronisms
Friday, August 1
Yolanda Sfetsos, Author of Guarded by Stone
Q&A on Paranormal and Urban Fantasy World Building
Katie MacIver, KatieDidDesign
Workshop on Website Design and Color Selection
Saturday, August 2
Joey W. Hill, Erotica Author
Workshop on Plotting Erotica and Erotic Romance
Rhonda Stapleton, Editor and Author
Workshop on Style and Voice
There is also a ton of great door prizes for participants so check it out!
Techno-Cake Awesomeness
Posted by Dana on Jul 19, 2008
Remember how I was talking about the LaserJet III that my parents bought as our first laser printer?
It turns out Charm City Cakes (Baltimore, MD) made one out of cake. And it is EXACLTY the way I remember it.
They are so talented! I LOVE THIS!
See that window where they wish Jim Good Luck? That’s where it ALWAYS used to flash “PC Load Letter.”
How funny is that!
PC Load Letter?
Posted by Dana on Jul 18, 2008
Back before there was an internet, HP launched a little miracle called the LaserJet. For those of us who aged at warp speed waiting for things to print it was a miracle. It was pricey but my parents bought one (bless them!) we had one in the 80s.
This was long before the movie Office Space, but I remember the PC Load Letter window vividly. All in all though, it was a techno-miracle and we didn’t care.
Flash forward 20 years and some people are STILL using those old printers. They’re workhorses and print TONS without any of the whiney garbage you get from today’s disposable model. But my family, in some ways is still quite loyal to HP printers. They’ve never failed us.
So my dad’s office changed some stuff around recently and VIOLA! Free HP Officejet All-in-one-printer. Awesome. This one has a flat bed scanner which I’m hoping will allow me to digitize my notes, bills and other stuff I’m tried of having to file and then find. Who knew it was also the holy grail of printer drivers. It literally took me THREE hours to finally get everything together. It wouldn’t allow me to install the online drivers. It wouldn’t let me install without requiring that I uninstall drivers for another printer I love dearly (what the heck is up with THAT HP?). But I ordered the CD from HP for free (woot!) and installed it.
After several freezes, crashes, fatal errors, etc. It worked, right? Not exactly.
Apparently taming the drivers wasn’t challenging enough. First it was out of ink and then the printer heads died. I didn’t know what a printer head was before today but now I know what it is, it’s money. $35 to be exact and this thing has FOUR of them.
I was foiled by the equivalent of two inches of plastic. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m laughing.
I wanted to leave you a clip from an appropriate movie. But I couldn’t find a bleeped one. More importantly I couldn’t find the ORIGINAL one. Apparently half the geeks in America are filming themselves in this scene and uploading on YouTube. If you find the actual scene from the movie can you please message me?
If feels good to be a gangsta!
Odd use of the word “retro”
Posted by Dana on Jul 17, 2008
Now I don’t know about you, but to me the word “retro” implies something that was fun but is now out of date. Things like disco and platform shoes. Lots of people liked those things. Many still miss them and that is okay with me.
Here is what I don’t understand: use of the word “retro” as an excuse to bring back one of the biggest pain in the butts in the history of civilization. The rotary dial telephone receiver.
Yes, you saw that correctly, and for those of you who are too young to remember getting strangled by a phone cord allow me to enlighten you.
Phone cords are the difference between being able to: do the dishes, brush your hair, go check your teeth in the bathroom mirror, walk to your door so you don’t miss the hot UPS guy and being stuck within two feet of your phone.
They are also a hazard as you inevitably get so bored sitting there with nothing else to do you start winding yourself up in the cord. Don’t look at me like that, we’ve ALL done it.
And that doesn’t even take into consideration how dumb you would look for having spent $30 on something that doesn’t count as “hands free” and weighs more then your actual phone.
If you can believe it they even have the wireless blue tooth version. What a crock!
Five Forty Five and I’m Aaaaargh!
Posted by Dana on Jul 16, 2008
I’m awake and it’s 5:45am. Not because of a fire alarm (thank goodness) just because my body decided to wake me up and I couldn’t go back to sleep. It’s so unfair! I totally could have slept until 7:30am! (7:45 if I promised myself I’d get ready quickly).
Anyway, this is my 200th blog post, quite a coup for a slacker such as myself. It even looks like I might have a couple loyal readers according to statcounter (and a heck of a lot of people who google “Antonio Sabato Junior” and “David Beckham naked” LOL!).
So for those of you who visit here (yay), I’m going to enlighten your mind with the strangest thing I’ve seen in awhile.
<——– Do you know what this is? Can you guess? I’ll give you a hint. It doesn’t have anything to do with ice cream.
It’s a lucky golden poo.
No, REALLY! Even I can’t make this stuff up. According to Think Geek the kanji for “lucky” in Japan is very similar to the shortened form of the Japanese word for “poo.” Hence the brilliant Japanese played with the pun and the Lucky Golden Poo was um..born.
They’re selling it as a cell phone charm.
Now I don’t know about you but if I met an attractive man and his cellphone was decorated with poo I might have to think twice.
For the whole story click HERE
And for those of you who are afraid to click I should tell you that the golden poo is out of stock. I’m assuming they’re still trying to recover from last Christmas’s run on gag gift stocking stuffers.
It is, after all, golden.