AOL Journals: Magic Smoke

"What's the Caption? Wednesday" #6 Poll

Sun, 11 May 2008 16:24:47 GMT

Hi, you all! It's Krissy. It's time to choose your favorite caption for this week's "What's the Caption? Wednesday".

Valerie and I want to thank all of you who submitted captions.

A panel of JLand judges has looked over all of them, and has chosen four for you to vote on.

So now it's your turn to participate. Using the poll we have provided, choose your favorite caption for the photo below.

We are asking a few things of you. We want the best caption to win fair and square. Please vote only once. Vote for the caption you like best, not for your favorite author! And please, nobody campaign for votes. You are on your honor.

You have until midnight on Monday to vote. On Tuesday morning the winner will be announced.

Now have fun! ~ go and vote!

**"What's the Caption? Wednesday" game is run by Valerie of There is a Season and Krissy of Sometimes I Think

Tags: What's the Caption? Wednesday, caption game, caption games, word game, word games, polls, poll, giraffe, blogplugs

EXTRA Creative Challenge-Tribute to Mothers

Sun, 04 May 2008 15:37:33 GMT

This Challenge is a "Tribute to Mothers" ALL mothers, one mother....any mother...Ü
Could be your sister, if she's a mother....could be your own mother, could be a portrait of yourself as a mother.
ANYTHING GOES, be creative, use whatever you want....quotes, poems.....things your mother always said..... Stories of your mother, childhood memories....
Only one category this week, "FUN"
You have now till THURSDAY, May 9th 7PM EST to post your tribute to your mom. Or any mom...... I will post them on Friday.
Leave your link on Our Challenge Blog.
Or copy & paste this link
http://journals.aol.com/mariebm56/aol-community-photo-challenge/entries/2008/05/04/extra-creative-challenge-tribute-to-mothers/676
PLEASE FOLLOW GUIDELINES Ü
USE PERMALINKS!

Tags: Blogplugs, creative challenge, photography, tribute to mothers, mother's day

Reminder for Caption Game...

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:53:08 GMT

Hi, Val here. This is a reminder that submissions for "What's the Caption? Wednesday" are due by 4PM EST today. You have a little over three hours to get in your Caption! If you would like to submit this week, click on the link below:

"What's the Caption? Wednesday" #6

Tags: What's the Caption? Wednesday, caption game, word game, word games

Friday Blogplugs - 5/9

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:55:22 GMT

Hi folks,

Greetings from the left coast! The weather is putting a smile on everybody's face here. Let's see what we got for blogplugs.

* Robin's daughter Gabby brings home twin baby girls..er..eggs to care for. Look here, they are doing egg-cellent!

* Bill would like to share his comic strip "The Wildcat's Lair" that he publishes every Wednesday and Friday. Our guest editor Beth has highlighted his journal. Enuff said.

* Sherry's weigh in day was a happy one and wants us to know that today is Military Spouse day. Sherry urges us to deal with stuff that stresses us and get it out of the way.

* Krissy interviews her dad for his 80th birthday.

* Beth writes about Coral Court Motel and tells us why abandoned places and those with history fascinate her.

* Donna would like us to take her poll on who the National Hockey League finalists will be. I voted!. Here she has pictures of a woodpecker at the feeder.

* Dan points out that we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first spam email. And since then, billions and billions have been sent out :). He reviews the show Lost, Season 4/Episode 10.

* Indigo notes that emotions are on the edge in these tough times and urges us not to take out our anger on our loved ones, but instead, turn to them for support. In another entry, she reveals the song for her Sunday Rhapsody. It's from the movie Rockstar.

* Paul wants us to go ahead and imagine that we are (re)creating ourself.

Contests & Trivia!

* Weekly sentence with Val. This week's letters are STESTD. The entries are here .

* Monday Morning Question with Krissy. TheBrady Bunch..was this a great moment in American television ?

Lights, Camera and Action!

* Krissy's JLand Photo Shoot entries for the subject "Spring".

* Marie's AOL Community Photo Challenge, winners for the subject "Landscapes in Black & White", judged and fun.

---

I recently added some web sites to the allowed list, meaning that you can include their html code in your journal. If you have any websites that you want me to "allow" please send me email and we will review it. Here is the list of recently added websites:

rcm.amazon.com - this is for the associates program
twitter.com
www.dizzler.com
godtube.com
www.finetune.com
picasaweb.google.com

---

We would like to wish all the mothers out there, a very Happy Mother's Day! Thanks again for the blogplugs this week. Don't forget to tag your best en
tries with "blogplugs". If you want to be a Guest Editor or have some interesting (or useful) blogplugs, send your submissions to JournalsEditor@aol.com and we'll review them.

~Vish

Tags: blogplugs, aol journals

Guest Editor Picks 5-9-08

Fri, 09 May 2008 19:30:09 GMT

Hi Everyone!

I'm Beth, and I'm very excited and honored to be this week's Guest Editor. A big thank you to Vish and Magic Smoke for giving me such a great opportunity!

My journal is called Nutwood Junction, which is what my husband Ken and I call our place. (Ken was recently a guest editor pick, but at the risk of nepotism, I'm going to sneak in his link!) In the early 1900's, the land was part of a tiny little town called Nutwood, and railroad tracks ran through our property...thus, Nutwood Junction! We have 11 acres, and we've found our dream home here. We enjoy our yard, woods, and wetlands, as well as the various critters we encounter. You'll see lots of pictures and read many adventures concerning Nutwood at my journal, and you just might read a few of my opinions about everything from football to politics. (For those of you who already read me...STOP LAUGHING!) After almost 25 years of working as a Medical Technologist, most of the time as a Microbiologist, I recently retired, and I'm loving it! I love watching birds, and since our place has such different types of habitat, we see a wide variety of species.

We have one critter of the indoor variety, our cat, Sheeba. He doesn't have a journal yet, but as soon as he learns to type, watch out J-Land! That whole lack of opposable thumbs is a bit of a hindrance to him.

There are a lot of journals that I enjoy, but I've tried to narrow it down to a handful--not an easy task! I haven't listed any private journals, and I've tried not to include any that have been chosen more than once before, although since I've only been blogging for about a year and a half, there may be some that I missed from before. So here we go.

After a long absence, The Wildcat's Lair has returned. Huzzah! I stumbled across this one day and spent the next two hours or so reading and viewing the adventures of Wildcat (Bill) and his cat, Frank. Bill took a hiatus to work on his book as well as a book he's writing with his wife, so wish them luck in finding a publisher! Wildcat and Frank have returned for twice-weekly episodes, and I'm as happy as a little girl. I'm certain that if all cats could talk, they would sound a lot like the sarcastic and smart-alecky Frank.

While she doesn't post on My Thoughts as often as I wish, Myra has insightful and thought-provoking entries. Her beautiful entry on Earth Day reinforced my feeling that we are all in this together, and that we all owe our planet much more respect than we've given it lately. And when it's dark and cold here in Indiana, her entries about living in Arizona give me a little vicarious warmth.

If you've read me in the past, you know that I'm partial to Dr. Will Miller, who is an unlikely combination of psychologist, minister, motivational speaker, and stand-up comedian. In addition to his usual blog (not an AOL journal), he also has his Refrigerator Rights blog, focusing on his book of the same name. As I have recently joined the ranks of the retired, his message of connecting with friends and family really speaks to me. How many people have unspoken rights to reach into our fridge for a cool beverage without asking permission? How many people do we feel that same level of comfort with? Dr. Will is the main contributor, but various colleagues provide additional viewpoints, and it always gives me something to think about, and is a nice reminder of the importance of human connections.

If I'm not mistaken, Sheria and her journal On My Mind have been listed before, but it really is one of my favorites to read, so I wanted to include her again. Her wonderfully intelligent entries are at turns introspective and knee-slappingly hilarious. It's a rare thing to find someone with whom you feel an almost immediate connection, but that's how I feel about Sheria. (Indigo was the one who told me I might enjoy Sheria's journal, so that should give you and idea of how good it is. Did you notice how I snuck in another link there?) Sheria doesn't live in Georgia, but she's still a peach!

One I've started reading fairly recently is Pat's Roses Rambling. She intersperses her poetry with entries about her family and her experiences. These entries are beautifully written, and they never fail to touch me, sometimes because of their sweetness and other times because of their humor. Be sure to read her entry about her encounter with Vincent Price. It is...well, priceless!

Finally, there's another non-AOL blog that I read, but this one is not for the faint of heart. In the interest of self-censorship, I'm not providing the link here. If you want to read a completely uncensored view of Las Vegas, drop me an email and I'll send you the link--as well as my mini-review of the blog.

Happy reading!

AOL Community Challenge-Landscapes in COLOR!

Fri, 09 May 2008 14:51:24 GMT

Spring is here & so is the color!!! So Our Challenge this week is easy.....
LANDSCAPES in COLOR! FOLLOW GUIDELINES & you must leave permalinks. Post your NEW entry now till Friday May 16th for Judging. If you have any questions e-mail me or Vicki. Leave your entry links on our Challenge blog.
Pick the category you would like to enter in. If you are new, we suggest the Fun category.

What is a Landscape.????......
From AOL dictionary;
1 a : a picture representing a view of natural inland scenery b : the art of depicting such scenery

Organizational Challenge!

Thu, 08 May 2008 13:22:39 GMT

This week I will challenge your Organizational Skills

But first a recap of the previous weeks

Two weeks age the challenge was FUN! "Who Are You" on the tree. I truly enjoyed reading all of your
comments and as promised... I told you I would tell you which one I saw myself as.

This exercise is always fun because there is no wrong answer. It all comes down to how you see yourself.

When I first did this exercise I saw myself as #20. Many of you who
picked #20 saw yourself as "tired: "warn" "lazy" or "apathetic."

When I first picked #20 I thought of it as someone who had gone up and
down the tree so many times they simply took a break to regroup.

Today I saw myself as #4 I lost my grip and just wasn't able to keep up with all of my challenges. (I still want to get in touch with all of you who responded) Luckily there is soft ground below, and I am pretty certain that if I am knocked unconscious #20 would be woken by the thud and come check on me. If not #7 looks like he/she would love to jump off the swing and run over to dust me off. Or #19 after making sure #5 had a solid footing would come check on me. I'm not certan about #18. I'm not quite sure why he is there by the ladder. Is he holding it up for the climber waiting to kick it out from under #3.

This week at Inspiration we have been talking about getting organized. Some of you are trying to do so and others seem to have it very much under control. This challenge is for you no matter if your are organized of functionally messy.

Here is the challenge.

If you are trying to get organized, pick one thing you wish you could be more organized with and work on it for a week. Make a "project". Put it on priority status and share with us what it is you would like to be more organized with.

If you are organized, and have great tips, please share them in the comments section, e-mail me, or share your help and insight with those that posted below. Try to offer three to six GREAT tips that will help those that are struggling to get organized.

You have till next Thursday to complete this challenge. Don't forget to grab the tag and add it to your sidebar if you are joining with us. Additionally if you know anyone that would be interested in sharing or might be inspired by this, please invite them to join!

Tags: Organize, Fun, Inspire

"What's the Caption? Wednesday" #6!...

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:37:33 GMT

Hi, Val here =). It's time for a new picture for "What's the Caption? Wednesday"! The game was so much fun last week and we had a ball reading your Captions!! Congratulations again to last week's winner Dawn of Carpe Diem - Seize the Day!!   As always, we will help you along with entries, so keep Magic Smoke on alerts!! The picture will follow the rules. Have fun!! Val and Krissy =)



* Krissy and I (Val) will place a picture around 9AM EST in
     Magic Smoke each Wednesday morning.

* After the picture is posted, place a Caption you feel is
     appropriate for the picture in the Comments Section. Please
     DO NOT email your submission or put it under any other
     Comment Sections. We will not hunt down your submission.
     Only submissions placed in the Comment Section under the
     picture will be eligible for judging. If you do this as an
     entry in your blog, please return to Magic Smoke and put
     your submission in the Comments Section.

* Only submit one Caption so others can play!!

* Submissions are due by Saturday 4PM EST. Those submitted
     after this time will not be eligible for judging.

* A panel of a few Jland judges (3 or 4) will look over the
     Captions and choose what they feel are the best 3 or 4.
     These will be posted on Sunday 9 AM EST (or when we
     can do it - sometime Sunday morning EARLY) by poll.

* Here comes the fun part! Where you get to participate! You
     will be voting for your favorite Caption by poll from Sunday
     9 AM EST (or as soon as we get it posted) through Midnight
     Monday EST!! At midnight we will check the poll and see who
     the winner is!! Any voting after midnight will be ignored.

* We will announce the winner on Tuesday morning with an Award
     for his/her sidebar!!

* A new picture will appear the next morning (Wednesday) and we
     will have fun all over again!!

*  "What's the Caption? Wednesday" is run by Krissy from
      Sometimes I Think and Valerie from There is a Season.

Tags: What's the Caption? Wednesday, caption game, word game, word games, blogplugs

Winner of "What's the Caption? Wednesday" #5!...

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:44:24 GMT

Hi, Val here. It's time to announce the winner of "What's the Caption? Wednesday" #5! It was another close race! Krissy and I extend CONGRATULATIONS to Dawn of Carpe Diem - Seize the Day!! congrats, Dawn!! Stop by and pay her a visit and congratulate her if you are able.

We would also like to congratulate runners-up Hadonfield (hadonfield78), Paul (plittle), and Randy (woodsrnd694)! great job, guys!!

Dawn's winning submission with this week's photo is below:


                            Boy George, The Senior Years

Here is your Award, Dawn! Right click and save as j.peg.:



Krissy and I want to thank everyone who submitted a Caption!!   I will be posting another picture tomorrow morning for your submissions. Congratulations again Dawn!! Have a great day everyone! See you tomorrow morning! Val and Krissy =)

Tags: What's the Caption? Wednesday, caption game, word game, word games, winner, Carpe Diem - Seize the Day, blogplugs

Feedback: Feature Focus Slideshows

Tue, 06 May 2008 02:36:21 GMT

I've written about embedding slideshows into your blog and shown 4 different examples from other sites.

Which one do you like best out of the 4 shown? Answer the poll below, and feel free to add a comment.

Bluestring and Photoshow examples are here.

Rockyou and Slide examples are here.

--Will @ willspeaking.com

Tags: slideshows, magic smoke, willspeaking