I Love Learning Something New

Most mornings I check snopes.com's "what's new". I love snopes. They examine all the crap that wanders into email inboxes and internet hoaxes. More than once, they've brought a phishing scheme to my attention, including one I nearly fell for.

When I get a warning or a story that seems hard to believe, a surprisingly large percentage of the time I've found the truth on their site. I never forward anything without checking there first (though, in truth, I rarely forward anything anyway, but that's another story). I love that they include their source material so you can see for yourself. I still remember a frenzied story about a report that said women caused more fires from static electricity at gas stations because of their pantyhose and cell phones. They read the report and noted that gender wasn't mentioned at all, nor were cell phones implicated. At work, safety officials were passing around the story (with the link) as if it were true. Guess who didn't read the report (I did - snopes.com was right.)?

Anyway, I like snopes.

Today, I like snopes even better because I learned something new to me. Apparently, some clever Brits managed to smuggle money, maps and more to the WWII British POWs in monopoly games. The maps were silk screened on to silk so they could fit in small spaces and didn't rustle when opened. The boards were hollowed out and slim compasses, maps and tools were slid into place. The Monopoly fake money would hide a stack of real money pertinent to the area. The maps were made specific to the area pertinent to particular POW camps.

I found that too cool for words.

Since board games were acceptable as care package fodder and, by a coincidence, the company that perfected silk-screening happened also to be the company authorized to make Monopoly for Great Britain, the idea took off.

I love learning new things, don't you? (And if you already knew, and I'm sure some of you did, what can I say? I didn't.)

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I Say It's My Birthday...

Yep, it's that time again! I am officially old. Again

Wow, what a week. Staying at work late for an endless procession of telecons, this week complicated by a horrible smell of adhesive from the roofwork being done, then coming home, still high from fumes to work on my novel. It's been hard to motivate myself to exercise when my novel is calling to me and, yeah, I haven't been good.

But the blogging I haven't done has translated into novel I have been writing. And I've still been a good mother and so-so wife. But everything else has fallen by the wayside.

Well, today was my birthday, and a long day of telecons, but I went walking with the family and still managed to pump out 2500 words that were, apparently, just waiting to come out. So, I'm blogging.

'Cept I don't have anything really clever to say. Apparently, I'm using up all my clever in my novel. And in the occasional comments on other blogs, and, perhaps, for work.

So, I'm going to do something I never do. I ordered some tarot cards to replace my husband's first deck, one he really loved (but lost a single card to). He has another full deck (by the same artist) but I thought I'd replace his deck. Except, once I finally found a replacement (I think it's out of print) and ordered it, he tells me he's just as happy with the major arcana and he doesn't want it.

So, I thought I'd do a contest to win a very nice deck of Tarot cards with an excellent instruction book (unopened). It's called the Celtic Dragon Tarot. You can find a review of it here.

Tarot cards aren't for everyone, of course. But, I'd like for this wonderful little deck to go to someone who's interested. It's a fun hobby and is certainly interesting. Quite the icebreaker at parties. And, hey, my advice is free.

So, it's not only my birthday, it can be yours, too. Or it can be an interesting present for the hard-to-buy-for.

So, how to enter? Just write me a comment, telling me a thought provoking idea, for other times when my brain is too busy with everything else to cough up ideas. I'll be honest; I'll use all the ones that interest me. But the one I like best wins you the Celtic Dragon Tarot kit. Now, if you want to give ideas, but don't want the tarot cards, just say so in your comment. I'll take those, too. But, if you or someone you love has been interested in dabbling in the occult [insert diabolical laugh here], here's a chance to get a fine deck at no expense to you.

Contest ends on November 28.

And I find the cards a good home.

P.S. Because I'm eating the cost and the postage, I'm limiting this to the US and Canada. I know that's not entirely fair, but I doubt I could get them to someone in Europe or Australia or anywhere else overseas before Christmas.

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