Art with a meaning.

Religious themes in Art go back centuries, but religious art can be hard to find these days, for some reason.

Lordsart.com changes that by making it easy to shop for Christian art and gifts ranging from paintings to etched glass to photography. There's even Christian modern art and "poetry gifts," gifts with special poems etched in them for that added touch when you're looking for a religious way to celebrate a holiday, special occasion, or just decorate your house.

Paul Simon got it all wrong. He probably didn't know about Pigs, Sheep and Wolves, either.

So you want to be a writer? Don't worry about what Paul Simon said-- you don't need either a quiet place OR a humble pen. What you do need, though, is a lot of ink. You're going to be printing a LOT of stuff. A LOT A LOT of stuff... query letters, sample chapters, proposals, letters to friends complaining about how you always get rejected (that's mostly just me, though) and, of course, cute cartoons about cats to post on the wall at work. (Everyone does that, I know.)

Needing a lot of ink leads naturally to needing a lot of ink cartridge coupons, which you can easily get from Inkstudy.

Inkstudy is a comparision site that helps you find the best deals on printer ink -- and it's updated daily with new prices, new information, and new discounts. That, and they've got ink cartridge reviews so that you can make sure you're getting good products for your good money.

I go there all the time, because right on the front page are listings of great deals with links to ink cartridge coupons, so that in just a few minutes I'm saving money and ready to continue printing up my stuff -- the stuff you'll be buying off bookstores' shelves in just a few months. (Fingers crossed, right?)

Feel free to use a picture of me in your holiday photo cards; nothing says "Happy Holidays" like my smiling face.

It's the first day of summer, and you know what that means: Weddings and baby showers and babies being born and all the other stuff that people do that needs announcing.

When major events happen, you can deal with them one of two ways. There's the way I do it, which is to say "What? Something happened? Hang on -- I'm almost finished reading this week's Garfield." (That comic requires a lot of thought.)

Or you could, you know, do it right, by making sure that your family and friends and coworkers get a nice, classy announcement or invitation or card. Like a Peachtree card.

Peachtree lets you make your own customized invitations, birth announcement, or even holiday photo cards, and let me tell you, they REALLY take the burden off. Sweetie and I did our own wedding invitations, way way back when, and it was terrible. Buying the paper, finding fonts, printing, folding, blah blah blah.

With Peachtree, though, it's this simple. Find a style you like, like this one:
Then type in your information, email them the photo you want, and you get classy, nice save the date cards, birth announcements, wedding invitations, or more, on good quality cardstock with professional images and typesetting. So you won't have have your wedding invitations all crooked and smudged and thumbprinted. (We told ourselves "that's part of the charm...")

You're going to spend the summer inviting people to things and announcing things to them. Might as well do it right. And now... back to Garfield. I just don't get the joke this week.

Middle won't be getting as much money on there as she thinks, you know.

In two months or so, we're going to be dropping Middle off at Oshkosh to begin her college life, and we'd like to help her out with cash from time to time -- but we can't always drive up there, and I don't want to mail her checks and make her to go the Bank to deposit them and wait three days for the cash.

The solution in my case is to get her a Prepaid Debit card from Netspend.com; I can give that to her, and then put money on it at any time through Netspend. She gets the money right away, I get the ability to not be inconvenienced.

Netspend isn't just good that way. I work with a lot of people who for one reason or another have trouble getting bank accounts-- people who are in financial trouble. Netspend can act as a bank for them, giving them an ATM card they can use everywhere (including online) but without worrying that their financial history will screw up their chances of opening an account; so I recommend it from time to time to clients who find themselves having trouble getting a "regular" bank account. And it's tempting for ME to get one -- since I would avoid all the fees and weird rules my bank has and could just have an ATM card -- a VISA or Mastercard one, at that, so it's accepted everywhere they are, just like a bank-issued ATM card.

Let's Help Some Little Kids!

The auction has begun! I am auctioning off the first of the Books Taken For Charity. Even as we speak, you can go to eBay and bid on a copy of my book, Eclipse, autographed by The Greatest Band In the History of Ever, Murder Mystery!

The auction will go for 10 days, and all proceeds go to benefit Mateo and McHale Shaw and help pay their medical bills. So please... please please please, go bid on the book. You get a great book, autographed by The Greatest Band, and you'll be helping two wonderful little boys.

Click here to go directly to the page to bid. Help these little boys out!

Direct TV: It's there for you when you're done reading.

As a guy who likes to write, I know you like to read and want you to read. But even I don't read all the time -- not when there's so many awesome television shows on for so little money. I mean, I can get HBO, Showtime, something like a zillion channels, all in HD and on my DVR, for practically nothing per month. And I'm sure you can, because I'm sure that you already got one of the great Direct TV Packages available from Direct TV.

Directtv is... how can I put this? Let me see... Direct TV is the only smart thing to do if you like TV. How's that? Kind of blunt, I know, but true. Direct TV is a company that actually tries to please it's customers (unlike your cable provider) and provides great service and premium channels and HD quality and DVRs...

and Direct TV does all that for super-low prices, starting at $29.99 per month. Less than a buck a day -- you can't get anything for that low of a price.

Great customer service, tons of packages, tons of channels, premium cable channels, and $29.99 per month? See what I mean? Direct TV is the only smart thing to do if you like TV.

You can't read books all the time. I don't write enough. So in between, you know you're going to want to watch the NFL Network or HBO or Comedy Central or something, so why not watch it in higher quality for lower prices?

I'm like the General of a Tiny, Radio-Controlled Army.

Is there anything more fun than a radio controlled car or plane or boat?

Sure there is: A radio controlled helicopter. And you know what's more fun than THAT? A Radio controlled flying space guy. And you know what's more fun than THAT?

A radio-controlled flying space guy you can fly around in the house and make chase your two-year-old sons.

That's the dream I have after looking at the RC Model Pro site, an online site that sells all kinds of radio controlled stuff, from helicopters to space guys to cars and trucks to the Stealth Bomber.

That's right: they have a radio-controlled Stealth Bomber, which would not only be excellent to fly but also would be invisible to your neighbor's home radar set. Take that, nosy high-tech neighbor.

I've been looking around the RC Model Pro site because it's time for me to think about what to make the kids get me for Father's Day, and the radio-controlled flying saucer I used to have popped into my mind. Once I was on the site, though, I got lost in all the RC stuff they have, and began imagining having races around the backyard with the cars, or the planes, and then I came across the space guys and I was sold.

All that and they've got free shipping AND I can pay through Paypal... what's not to like?

Now, I don't like to brag, but I'm not just a writer/lawyer/guy who likes RC helicopters. I've got some connections, too, and so since you're nice, I'll share this little tidbit with you: You can get $5 bucks off the the Venom Micro Ranger Helicopter. Just use Coupon Code: VMR500 and you'll save some money.

Odds are you'll then spend that $5 on something else they sell there, because it's so easy to keep on clicking and buying, and clicking and buying, and all the stuff is so cool. I am right now imagining assembling my own radio-controlled airforce, spearheaded by those space guys, of course.

Then let's see the neighbors complain about my lawn!

Everything I Know About Life I Learned from "Cartman."

Remember that episode of "South Park" where the kids had to beat that old hacker guy in World of Warcraft, and so they spent hours and hours and hours playing the same dumb mission over and over again to get enough power to beat him?

Yeah, it didn't make much sense to me either, but it probably was hilarious to people who play "World of Warcraft." I tried WoW once, and couldn't do much; I ended up burning down my house and accidentally shooting myself in the foot (a result that was, oddly, identical to the results I got when I played "The Sims," "Roller Coaster Tycoon" and "Ms. Pac Man.")

Anyway, I do know that you have to build up money and skills in WoW, and I know that can be boring -- 'cause I watched that South Park episode-- but I also know that there's a way to get around the boring part and skip to the good part: Buy WoW Gold online.

The World of Warcraft Online Gold Shop -- that link'll take you there -- will sell you online gold, saving you the boring task of building up enough money to do something FUN with the game. Who wants to spend all their online time trying simply to get some cash? That's what we do in REAL life. Instead, you can buy gold at the Online Store -- it's guaranteed-- and then get on with having some real fun.

Aren't Online Games supposed to be fun? I thought that was the whole point. So quit screwing around working for that blacksmith in the virtual village, buy some gold, and get on with fighting dragons.

And then help me get this Ms. Pac Man out of my foot.

How can they NOT pick Carla? She was cool.

I know, as it turns out, a lot of nurses. Well, okay, TWO. I know TWO -- my mom, and my sister-in-law. But they do a lot of nursing, as do all nurses, and they deal with things that guys like me can only imagine.

What would it be like, I sometimes wonder, if a day at work was not "sit in front of a computer and act like you're not watching the literal version of Total Eclipse of the Heart for the third straight time," and instead was more "Have people show up who are terribly ill and who if not attended to in mere moments will die?"

Nurses have an almost unimaginable, thankless task. They see people at their worst -- screaming in pain, nearly dead, covered in various fluids -- and they have to be calm through it all and keep their wits about them and not barf at what they see. That sets nurses apart from the rest of us people, in their own arena of goodness and kindness.

Which is why, I guess, the Scrubs site exists.

"Scrubs" doesn't have anything to do with the show; instead, it's a "Nurse's Guide To Good Living," and has articles on health, beauty, work, love, and more -- but all Nurse-centric and with an eye towards dealing with problems nurses face in those area. They've got articles like "Should You Date A Doctor?" -- something that maybe poses more of a problem for a nurse than, say, the lead singer of a "Josie and the Pussycats" tribute band. Or articles like "The 60 Second Stress Buster," something that I bet would be especially important for a nurse.

Or for those who KNOW nurses, like I do. There's a spot where you can take polls about nursing -- like the one I took about which fictional nurse was my favorite. (I picked Carla from Scrubs, because Carla not only cared and was tough, but also was funny, and I like funny nurses. The winner was Nurse Hathaway on ER; I gather most nurses want less funny, more competence.)

There's also a "tip jar," a list of questions and answers. As a lawyer, I liked (and commented on) the question about how to deal with a patient who threatens to sue; that's an unfortunate consequence of the age we live in, and I thought the advice was very helpful to nurses -- who may not want to consult a lawyer every time they go to work.

I've passed the link on to my sister-in-law and Mom and wanted to share it with you here. It helped me understand what their lives are like, and I think they'll really appreciate it a lot more than I did.

This is something actually helpful. Which is quite a change for me.

I've mentioned before that I no longer bother remembering things -- I just subcontract out my memory and by doing that, I leave more room in my mind for thinking about stuff like "what sandwiches should I invent this week?"

Doing that -- letting other people do my remembering for me -- is even easier when I can Search for any electronic book using a title, author, phrase, or portion of each and find what I'm looking for.

There's this site, the "Ebook Search Queen" that's been completed. Apparently, it's been the labor of love for a bunch of programmers for some time. What they've done is create this database of e-books that's searchable by phrase, title, or author, and it works awesomely. I was over there just now and checked out my own name -- and it came up not just with my books but also some court cases I've litigated in my practice, and more. I then tried checking out phrases from e-books I've bought, and it came up with them, each time -- plus some related searches.

So now I've got another thing to waste time at work, but on the plus side, I've freed up that much more of my brain. Egg & Bologna Sandwich, here I come.