NZ National Anthem Hard?

Is the New Zealand national anthem really that hard?

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I'm not a rugby fan. I'll be the first to admit that. However, I do take pride in my country, and when a singer totally botches my country's national anthem, I don't know if I want to laugh my head off, or run and hide.

Crystal Collins, American singer, was invited to sing the New Zealand national anthem at a rugby game between New Zealand and England in Denver. The results... Where does one even begin?

She butchered the Maori language, which is horrible within itself, but the English verse... What the...? It was so out of time, and didn't even follow the melody. I have no idea what she was singing, but it wasn't God Save New Zealand.

I decided that in response to this horrible rendition, I needed to actually sing for you what the New Zealand national anthem really sounds like. I might not be the best singer in the world, but trust me, that song really isn't that hard. Take a listen.

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Guilty

#CockyGate and Trademark Hell: Enough is Enough!

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I have been watching what is going on with #CockyGate, stunned by the train wreck that is gripping the publishing industry by storm. What started as one woman’s horrible mistake (and lack of understanding of trademark law) has blown up into a full-scale witch hunt. And you know what… I’ve had enough!

Pitchforks have been seized by the masses, and the mob is on the loose. No one is safe from this shit storm (and yes, I deliberately swore). I can tell you now, watching the social media feeds, there WILL be more than one author who will have their reputation harmed, if not destroyed, by this mess. Where will it end? Read More→

Sleep, Oh Precious Sleep…

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Sleep, oh precious sleep, why for art thou eluding me? Why must you be so broken? Why must I sleep so lightly?

Oh yeah, that’s right… I have children.

New mothers and women who are thinking about having children, listen up, and listen good. Accept it now. Sleep for you is over. You might get the odd night of deep slumber, but it won’t last. This I can guarantee you. Trust me, having children is the worst thing that any woman can do for their sleep pattern. And it really doesn’t matter that I happen to have two teenagers. They are STILL waking me up at all godly hours of the morning.

If you are a mother yourself, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. Sleep is something that disappears from your life before your children are even born.Read More→

Smartphone

Smartphone game has crossed the moral line.

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Anyone who knows me personally will know that I've always had an objection to computer games. It's not because of the violence or anything like that, but because of the addiction that is inherit with computers and electronic games.

I've lost count of the number of times when I've gotten up at all godly hours in the morning to discover my husband not in bed, because he was playing a stupid computer game (the same game he was playing when I went to bed six hours before). When our son was first born, my husband's addiction to computer games got so bad that we had to put in rules: he wasn't allowed to play any computer games except on a Friday or Saturday night, when he didn't have work the next day. Now that our son is in his late teens, my husband can see the dangers of our son going down the same road, and my husband has been helping me teach our son to manage this special breed of addiction.

However, lately I've noticed that the nature of the advertised games on certain apps has changed. For the first time ever, it's the nature of the games that has me seriously disturbed.

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I Appear to be a Pack Rat of Data Files

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In getting ready for GDPR (the new privacy law in the EU), I decided to take things one step further and do something that I’ve been avoiding for such a long time. We’re talking about something that I have been avoiding for years. I decided to clean out the old files on my Google Drive and Dropbox, and limit what I actually had on my local hard drive.

OMG, what a mission and a half — mainly because it appears that I’m a pack rat of data files.

Shall I hang my head in shame now?

For years, I have separated my personal writing from my other projects. Because of the way Scrivener works (a word processing program specific for writers), I tend to keep my personal writing limited to my Dropbox. However, in my clean out exercise, I found a whole range of files, both on my Dropbox and Google Drive, that either didn’t belong there, or were mislabeled.Read More→