Recession Busters #60: Food, Fun and Frugality

1. Depression Cooking with Clara is a delightful series of videos with "depression recipes" for these tough times. She shares many ways to save money preparing food at home. Here is what GMA had to say about her Great Depression Cooking With Clara, A Frugal Dish - ABC News.
More Recession Recipes.


2. The media has been flooding the airways with "recession busters," at the local and national levels. Here are some job hunting tips from Tory Johnson of Good Morning America (GMA).
There have also been many segments on GMA, NBC News, and CNN on budgeting, eating out less, cutting up credit cards, and shopping less. There was a segment just this morning on three couples who had been trying out a new budget and were now starting to see results. Several people talked about saving when you can to build up a 6 month reserve to help you get through tough times.

3. The local media has been very helpful also with tips on how to survive the recession. One thing that has been mentioned several times is borrowing books and DVDs from the local library. There are many sources of local free entertainment on the local TV and Newpaper websites, as well as in the Houston Chronicle. The library owns several books in day trips from Houston. The morning shows have been promoting "staycations" where you have a vacation in your backyard.
We purchased a more efficient car, and we eat out less. Fortunately I only work 3 miles from my house, so gas prices for commuting are not a big issue. We do drive less and try and group our errands when we can.

Potluck #55 Facebook

I have been a Facebook user for awhile now. I have 79 "friends," some named Sandham from England and South Africa. I finally decided to 'hide' the posts from people I don't really know (and some I do) because I wasn't really interested in them or them in me. I have had a great time keeping up with my nieces and nephews, married kids, and former coworkers. I have enjoyed videos and pictures of many relatives and some funny video postings by friends from YouTube. I occasionally chat with my daughter or my daughter-in-law or one of my nieces using Facebook.

I have added numerous applications, Flair, Pets, Virtual Bookshelf , and Good Karma, to name a few. I use Virtual Book shelf a lot, but have kind of let my pet down. My virtual pet, Bennie, the Airdale has been neglected lately and probably needs food and attention. I share Karma and plants from Lil Green Patch with friends and coworkers, just to let them know I am thinking of them.

It was very easy to sign up and to find friends. I will probably stay with Facebook, but I don't get on as often as I used to. I really dislike the new format. My favorite applications are Virtual Bookshelf and Good Karma. I like Notes too and have used it often to take quizzes or to post favorite quotes.

It is good to know that you can permanently delete your Facebook account. May not want this stuff on the 'ethernet' forever!

Post #56 Potluck - Twitter Exervises

1. I looked at various Twitter profiles and found them way too time consuming. I have no desire to twitter by my time away. I have signed up to follow George Stephanopoulos, NPR politics, Stargate Universe and Stargate Central, and GMA. I actually signed up for Twitter about 2 weeks before this assignment came out. I only look at it once a day or less.

2. I used the search feature to look up "polar bears." I also looked at SXSW.

3. I didn't find Twitter very useful or helpful, mostly a good way to waste time. Although after the way Facebook has ruined their site, I may give them both up and have more time to read. Twitter is not your friend, it can get you fired, even before you get hired: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29796962/

Post #54 Exercise 3 - Social Networking with Books

I use the Virtual Bookshelf on Facebook, Library Thing, and Good Reads, to keep up with the books I read and so share them with family and friends. It is fun to look at how others rate a book that you liked or disliked. Often there is a wide range of opinions on a book, people either hate it or love it. Both can make for a good discussion. Books that don't inspire such passion often don't get finished. The reader gets bored and quits. I started using Good Reads to keep track of books "to-be-read." That is much harder than keeping track of what I have read, it is so easy to lose track of a book that looked interesting at one point.

Post #54 Exercise 2 - Implementing book club

I already have implemented a book club at the library and I use many of these sources every month to choose books and to lead the discussions. Reading Group Guides and Reading Group Choices have been extremely helpful. I also use Books to Movies site because we watch and discuss a movie about once a quarter. Reading Group Guides also has much helpful information on how to handle a book club, including ice breakers, questions to ask if you can't find discussion questions, how to deal with members who won't talk and those who talk too much.

One place to look for book titles is Reading Group Guides under the "Most requested guides" section. This will show you what other book clubs are are reading and what is popular. One of the books we chose for later this year is on the list: Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.

Post #54 Exercise 1 - Book Clubs

I facilitate the Evening Book Club at the Barbara Bush Branch Library in Spring. We have been meeting for five years on the 2nd Tuesday of each month. I much prefer discussing books in person rather than online. The feedback is more immediate and it is easier for more than one person to participate in the discussion. Actually it is a book/movie club and 4x a year we show a movie based on a book and discuss it. This is the first and only book club I have been a member of. My subdivision tried to start one but it fell through. I have not been able to participate in the AAUW book clubs because of me work schedule. I have been disappointed in that, they have read some good books.

Post #53 - Exeercise 3 - Reading downloaded book

I downloaded "March to the Sea" by David Weber and John Ringo from the Baen Free Library. I downloaded it in the RTF format and it read like a Word document. I don't like reading things on the screen, the glare and the uncomfortable sitting gives me a stiff neck. I even print out magazine articles to read later so I don't have to read them on the screen. The only advantage I can see over a traditional book is if the book is not available or is out-of -print. I would much rather read a book on my sofa or in my bed then read one on the computer screen. I have not used a Kindle or other book storage device but they don't sound like something I would like. Give me a paperback (or these days LT). I guess on an ebook reader you can set the size of the type, that would probably be an advantage.

Post # 53 Bookstores Exercise 2

I looked for Black Wind by Clive Cussler on the Barnes and Noble's website and on Amazon.com. It was available from B&N at $8.99 (members) and used from $1.99. It was not available in audio from B&N but was on Amazon.com as an audio book on CD and as an ebook available for the Kindle (for $7.99).

Post #53 Exercise 1

Three bookstores in the area are:
Half Price Books
Barnes and Noble
Bookland (on Louetta)

Half Price books and Barnes and Nobles have a national, professional presence on the Web. B&N offers books, DVDs, music, games, gifts and gift cards. Used and out-of-print books and bargian-priced books are available. There is also a "coming soon" and a "recommended" section. Half Price Book's site is also a wealth of information and fun to click around on, however you can't search for books on their site. The search box takes you to Amazon.com. The stock in the stores is all different and changes constantly. Bookland, a local independent bookstore has no website.

#52 Exercises 3 and 4

3. Using Novelist Plus I found authors who are considered similar to Dean Koontz:
Greg Bear, Dan Simmons, Robert MCCammon, John Saul, and Charles Grant.

On the Allreaders.com site, I found similar authors for different titles by Koontz. The title I used was Dark Rivers of the Heart and this website has a lot of information for this title as well as several similar book titles, not just authors.

http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/info_674.asp?BSID=0

4. The order of the series by Tamora Pierce: See link below, scroll to bottom of the page.
http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/readers/series/juv/author.cfm?id=498

#52 Exercise 2

Using Novelist Plus I found these titles:

For a girl in grade 4: Animals Hibernating: How animals survive extreme conditions by Pat Stephens for grades 3-5.

For a boy age 13: Ghosts and Real-Life Ghost Hunters by Michael Teitelbaum.

#52 Books, readers and beyond - What to read- Exercise 1

I own Nancy Pearl's two books and am familiar with many of these websites. I run the Evening book club here at the branch and so use them often. It was a great refresher and a few of the sites I hadn't looked at before.

When I first started my "read-a-like" quest, I had a hard time finding titles and authors for the book I chose. Novelist Plus didn't help much in that case - there was no "find similar author" link for that title. It took me to the subject headings and I had to make choices about what I wanted in the books and I was not very happy with the results.

The website "What to read next" was having issues and gave a 505 database error.

So I changed titles to "Black Wind" by Clive Cussler. I had better luck with this title on Novelist Plus and The Downer's Grove PL and Librarybooklist.org which led to Overbooked. The Overbooked and Downer's Grove lists were very similar including authors, Ted Bell, Jack DuBrul and Preston and Child. Novelist included Tom Clancy and Ian Fleming. Read-a-likes is still a challenging issue. It is hard to tell sometimes what it is about a book that made you like it so much, so a similar author may not do at all.