laurielikesbooks.blog-city.com

What was begun as an online journal of the books I read evolved...or maybe it devolved...to also feature behind the scenes goings-on at All About Romance from my perspective (mostly based on my personal feelings - okay, it's a personal pity party); topics I've gone over ad nauseum in commentary at AAR, including the nature of reviews and online behavior; and my non-cyber life (including family and items in pop culture that capture my interest, which is just about everything).

Please do not violate my trust. I restricted certain AAR-related and personal entries for a reason...to keep them as private as possible. Now that my blog is read-only, to access restricted entries you must already have a password; if you do, hold onto it so that you can continue to read restricted entries.

This blog is not part of All About Romance. I ask that you keep comments or questions regarding restricted blog content off of AAR.

March 2005

It Works!

Thursday, 31 March 2005 8:16 P GMT-05

The new banner rotation program was installed this afternoon and figuring out how to use it, with the help of the online guide, was a breeze. I've now got all of AAR's ad clients and their ads in the new system, and even better, the additional bit

Category: AAR

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Five Minutes Ago...

Thursday, 31 March 2005 2:21 P GMT-05

Five minutes ago I changed my mind on which one of two banner rotation programs I was going to buy and placed my online order. Both had agreed to discount their program and to provide free installation. I'd actually decided to go with one company

Category: Reading AAR

If It Weren't for Bad Luck...

Tuesday, 29 March 2005 6:51 P GMT-05

As my husband is wont to say, "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all." Him and me both.Late last week - Friday to be precise - one of our message boards and our entire reviews database went down. It turns out that the wonder

Category: AAR

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Oops!

Sunday, 27 March 2005 3:16 P GMT-05

Late last week Cheryl Sneed showed me a flaw in our data entry process - not a flaw in the work itself, but a flaw in how I'm letting readers know which reviews can be found in the database and which reviews are still in our "old system."

Category: AAR

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Hello, Gorgeous!

Thursday, 24 March 2005 3:45 P GMT-05

Although I've read a grand total of 37 short stories and books this year, I've only blogged about a third, give or take. Will I ever have time to catch up? At this point I can't say, but I did want to mention the book I finished yesterday - MaryJanic

Category: Reading

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March RTB column online

Wednesday, 23 March 2005 3:24 P GMT-05

FYI - This morning my March RTB column went online.TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Category: Blogging

I Feel Better Now

Wednesday, 23 March 2005 12:59 A GMT-05

Now that 20% of AAR's reviews have been entered into our reviews database, it occurred to me that I could perform some otherwise impossible searches. The very first? To see how many of the books we've reviewed are "warm," "hot,&quo

Category: AAR

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Did you know that we're all too stupid to live?

Tuesday, 22 March 2005 8:24 P GMT-05

Okay, so we are living in a time when much of the world fears possible fall-out as a result of rogue Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's sale of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, and that Malaysia, South Africa, Japan, the UAE,

Category: Entertainment Personal/Political

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Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Today

Tuesday, 22 March 2005 1:27 P GMT-05

I woke up with a mission yesterday: to help readers navigate our reviews given that 1/5 are now in the database and 4/5 are not. I had the idea that if we put both search modules on the bottom of each review - both our internal search by author/ti

Category: AAR Blogging Internet

About Last Night...

Monday, 21 March 2005 12:59 A GMT-05

I called my husband a couple of months ago to tell him I'd bought my anniversary (it's today) present - tickets to the Maroon5 concert in Dallas on March 19th. In order to get really great seats, I had to join the online "fan club," but i

Category: Entertainment

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Adventure Week

Thursday, 17 March 2005 1:19 P GMT-05

So, our daughter's on her 7th grade "adventure week" - last year, as a sixth grader, her class went all over Texas in a bus. This year, as a seventh grader, the class flew, with three stalwart teachers, to New Mexico. I'm glad I forced

Category: Personal/Political

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Power

Wednesday, 16 March 2005 12:59 A GMT-05

I remember, shortly after 9/11, having a discussion with a friend who traveled to the Middle East on business all throughout the 1980s. We were talking about God Has 99 Names, a really terrific book by NYT reporter Judith Miller, that detailed th

Category: Personal/Political

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The Artist and Their Art

Monday, 14 March 2005 12:59 A GMT-05

Some questions arise over and over again on our message boards, including this one: Does author behavior (in-person or online) affect the reader in any way? I'm always fascinated by responses to this, being the sort of person who doesn't give a fl

Category: AAR Internet

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Cheese, Bees, and Maple Syrup

Sunday, 13 March 2005 2:52 A GMT-05

I find cheese-making incredibly interesting. Whenever there's a segment on cheese-making on the Food Network or PBS or Discovery, I always tune in. Cheese-making, bee-keeping/making honey, and the collecting and making of maple syrup all fascinat

Category: Personal/Political

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Correcting an error

Saturday, 12 March 2005 12:59 A GMT-05

I'd like to correct an error in one of yesterday's bloggings (and though that blogging was originally password protected, it was reprinted elsewhere verbatim so I not only removed its protection, but the protection of its correction) - the hero in

Category: Personal/Political Blogging Internet

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Not LLB, AAR!

Friday, 11 March 2005 9:13 P GMT-05

Okay, so The Archives of Laurie Likes Books ceased to exist at the start of 1998 when the site morphed into All About Romance. Folks, that was more than seven years ago. I wrote my last review at AAR way back in 2000 - my only input on reviews si

Category: AAR Internet

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I must have sex on the brain

Friday, 11 March 2005 12:59 A GMT-05

So I'm reading yet another contemporary romance featuring a virginal heroine in her 20's who's about to have her cherry popped, and she's worried how he's going to "fit," because, after all, she felt "really full" with just his fi

Category: Reading

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Googling can be dangerous

Friday, 11 March 2005 12:59 A GMT-05

(Please click here for a correction to this blogging)This blogging was originally password protected, but after being reprinted verbatim elsewhere, what's the point?Warning: this is a sexually explicit blogging! I realize that may tempt more of yo

Category: Personal/Political Internet

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Ms Magazine

Thursday, 10 March 2005 2:16 P GMT-05

It just goes to show how far romance has come in recent years that it is no longer automatically considered anti-feminist. How did I conclude this, you ask? Romancing the Blog, the super-blog site I write a monthly column for, is listed under A

Category: Blogging

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E-books and reviews

Monday, 7 March 2005 8:14 P GMT-05

I noticed that Ellora's Cave, a Romantica e-book publisher, is now selling the trade-size version of their books at major bookstores in the Dallas area. And not only that, the books are not relegated to the romance section or the erotica section -

Category: AAR

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