Elliot Cuts The Big Cheese

I got to be a "fly on the wall" while Elliot interviewed the big cheese (not mac cheese) today (Earnest). It's always fun to hear Elliot, but today he was awesome. Elliot decided to do lots of research before Earnest's interview. He was infinitely prepared and veered from his standard format a bit. He was spontaneous, charming and scarily well prepared. Way to go Elliot!

I wondered if he might be channeling the spirit of Tim Russert (please Lord don't let it be Anderson Cooper he's channeling - Elliot is too smart for that!) Imagine Elliot with his youthful charm and devious smile (at least I think he was smiling) asking some very hard hitting journalistic questions. Thankfully Mr. Big Cheese is somewhat of a savant as well and was able to provide intelligent responses to Elliot's questions.

Luckily, I don't think any of this will hurt Earnest's political career as:

a. he doesn't have one.

-and-

b. knowing the origin of the name of the little hillbilly's hometown isn't very controversial.

The interview will air Saturday August 2nd.

Oprah is NOT my BOFitUK

In a blog last week, I told you I forgot to talk about being on Oprah because I got sidetracked. What I meant by that was NOT that I was actually going to be on Oprah - but I had just done something even more fun being on Oprah as a part of my platform building process.

I’ve been interviewed by my BOFitUK (best only friend in the UK!)

My BOFitUK is Elliot. I’ve talked about him quite a bit in this blog. We finally got our calendars coordinated and he was able to interview me last weekend. The interview will be broadcast on Saturday the 12th of July. Please sign up here to be notified when the show is ready to go.

Here are the top 10 reasons it’s more fun to be interviewed by Elliot and not Oprah...

10. You can’t do the Oprah show from bed in a swimsuit and coverup (oh yes I did.)

9. Elliot has a much better accent and may even be smarter than Oprah.

8. I didn’t have to be analyzed by Dr. Phil before being on Elliot’s show.

7. Elliot probably doesn’t even know who Dr. Phil is.

6. Oprah doesn’t have a personal assistant named Sentinel Chicken who looks up your address on google maps and scares the bejezus out of you by telling you what’s in your neighbor’s backyard. (I wonder if he could see me putting on my swimsuit coverup when I got out of my own pool? Oh holy crap - now I’ve just scared the bejezus out of myself!)

5. I won’t have my career ruined because I was caught jumping up and down on Elliot’s couch. I’m not even sure if Elliot has a couch.

4. Oprah doesn’t have a cool little brother named Gravity Man who lived up to his name and fell out of his chair during my interview (he is gravitationally challenged.)

3. You don’t get to hear Oprah’s dad sending her to the loo right before she comes into the studio.

2. My website won’t crash from all the hits it would have gotten had I been on “her” show.

-and-

The number 1 reason it's more fun to be interviewed by Elliot than Oprah is...

...Oprah didn’t want to interview me and Elliot did - it’s nice to be wanted.

The show airs Saturday July 12. You can have the broadcast delivered directly to your email address. Don’t miss history in the making. This is surely going to be one of those “do you remember where you were when...” events.

Free Stuff

I've encountered many benefits from blogging. The outlet for my creativity is priceless. Saving the planet one word at a time is a major benefit as well. An income stream trickle drip dribble drop is - well - rewarding. And it helps build patience. I've made 23 cents since I started blogging in May. Google will cut me a check after I earn $99.77 more dollars. At this rate I'll get a check before I'm 60!

But by far the best aspect of blogging is free stuff. Today a dear reader sent me a book in the mail. She saw it and thought of me while shopping at Sal's (a well know national boutique also known as the Salvation Army - which is where I would be sleeping were I depending on my blogging income stream trickle drip dribble drop to support me.) She paid 50 cents for a Curves book and mailed it to me which cost another $4.64. That's over 5 whole bucks she spent on me (20 times more than I've earned so far.)

A few weeks ago a bag from Sonic showed up at my house. Another dear reader came by and left it in the living room while I was in session. I had no clue what was in the bag even after I opened it. It appeared to be some sort of fried food. I examined it for a minute and thought about calling the bomb squad in case someone from Dell or Microsoft was trying to rid the world of me. Perhaps their income stream had become a drop due to my blogs. But I was pretty sure this friend wasn't a double agent or a hired hit woman - so I took a leap of faith and bit into the mystery morsel.

OMG - it was fried mac-cheese. I knew about fried Twinkies and fried cheesecake, but who knew that Sonic had taken such a good thing and made it better with batter. I know you are not supposed to look up the price of a gift, but she paid $2.69 for those babies (maybe I need to set up a fried mac-cheese stand in front of my house - could be more profitable than blogging).

But the piece de resistance BY FAR is the coffee mug I won. Remember little Elliot - the 8 year old chap in the UK who has a podcast? If you don't, check out my blog post about him (he really is a major force.) Anyway, he has a contest each week during the podcast and I won! So Elliot sent me a coffee mug all the way from the mother land with his picture on one side and MY NAME on the other side. I'm not sure how much the mug cost (I'm not that rude - yet), but the postage was 7.81 British Pounds Sterling - not plain old shrinking US dollars. Which means Elliot (or more likely Sentinel Chicken - you'd know who that was if you listened to Elliot's show) spent almost $15 in postage to send me this priceless mug. A conservative estimate of the total funds channeled my way from Sparkle Studios is about $25.

Adding it all up that's:

$0.23 from Google Ad Sense
$5.00 for the Curves book
$2.69 for the fried mac-cheese from Sonic
$25.00 for the SparkleCast Mug

I've earned almost $33.00 of stuff as a result of this blogging thing. Of course I'm two grand into Apple for the new computer I had to buy to keep posting, but that is another story.

So today I celebrate blogging and FREE STUFF. Who knows what'll show up next....

My Hell Smell Del Dell

I was reading the weekly pondering on the website of a a psychotherapist friend of mine. Considering I put the "psycho" in therapy, I was glad to see that I was using her suggestions without realizing it. She was writing about making connections with people to be more a part of life. As you know, from an earlier post of mine I made lots of friends in India thanks to Microsoft Vista. Now I'm getting to make even more friends in India and some in Canada thanks to my hell Dell computer and it's all Elliot's fault!

We decided to get connected to "Skype" so we could be interviewed by this darling little 8 year old boy named Elliot. He lives in the UK and has his own podcast. In my humble opinion he's a phenom. I'm hoping to ride his cute little coat tail to fame and fortune. Anyway, we needed to install a headset and microphone on our laptops to make the interview happen. The installation went fine on Earnest's HP computer, but it crashed my sound card. Now my computer is totally mute (something around here needs to be quiet.).We both have Vista operating systems so it was time to call smell Dell technical support. After several hours they decided I needed a new mother board. Maybe they read my Mutha's Day post and felt sorry for me (can you tell I'm getting really good at links?!) So my new mutha is supposed to be her way (what do you wear to meet your new mutha - comments anyone?)

I think the best part of the story (except for Elliot - he is the real deal, please check out his stuff.) is what happened next. I decided to contact a couple of "woo woo" type people I know who are into energy healing stuff. I was hoping they could send out some good vibes to change my computer mojo (I'm missing Elliot badly!) One of them said he would see what he could do but also told me to get a MAC (no not with cheese). But since I'm taking this making new friends thing so seriously, I'm sticking with the del Dell and Vista. I think owning a MAC would be like being the Maytag repairman - a lonely solitary existence doomed to a life of a fully functional machine. Where's the fun in that?