Scarlett

Caro,{{{Hugs to you, your DD and DD's wee one!}}} :thbighug-1: Thanks for the recipe, Lotus! My, this place smells so good, doesn't it? *waves to spikesmom*

sigh I already purchased it and that website does not work well with my computer tribeca, oh, I'm not blaming you. Enjoy what you already have, by all means!!! :thbighug-1: And if you need any additional ones that you can't download just mention it casually somewhere, sometime -- maybe a passing angel will hear you. annabear, you're right!!! That is the bright side of things.

Oh, look what ldj posted. Eeeeee, I can try it! Thanks again. ETA: Lol! We posted at the same time! Ok, THAT I have. Thanks bunches, Eeeee! What a sweet hubby you have!!! ETA: annabear, you're right!!! That is the bright side of things.

Thanks, spikesmom! Just what I needed ... I haven't had dinner yet but I already had 2 slices of jazzgirl's blonde brownies that I made last night. I have enough time and all the ingredients to make your chocolate chip coffee cake tonight except the sour cream -- could I use either yogurt or cream cheese instead? *scans the board quickly, contemplates what I can get away with on a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity-plea and jumps into the fray!!!* My only regret with a certain personal decision -- not grabbing the full set of TNG DVD's. What a day I had! For the 2nd time in a year, I got picked to be a juror. And not just on any case, oh no! (can't talk about it but I can still whine about Texas laws in general, can't I?) With all the huge important things that need fixing in the world -- the economy, healthcare, global warming, Clay (apparently) *rolls eyes*, etc. it's amazing how Texas can come up with the most frivolous misdemeanor charges in the world. Now I know I deserve this as payback for all the times during the eHP's Summer Sojourn in San Francisco when I took "As Long As We're Here And It's Just a Misdemeanor in Texas" as my motto. So now I'm going to be forced to uphold the stupid misdemeanor. Well... if CNN carries the story of somebody going postal in the Harris County Courthouse, you know where to send the bail money! On bundling Clack as a "freebie" -- there's no such thing as a "freebie". Letting others know that the seller usually "offers" Clack allows people to justify higher bids. Clack should be offered on a "no purchase necessary rule" since whoever offers them didn't pay anyone for the rights, whether they took them themselves or not.

Thanks for that blog, Caro! By coincidence I was not only baking a batch of yummy brownies but I was also making some beef with potatoes and cabbage soup tonight. Yes, it a great time to bring out those soup recipes. :pickme: spikesmom, I'm interested!!! I do too. Frankly the average person on the street doesn't know what a claymate is IMO. Oh the hatahs and some media that we jumped on know but even most media just looks at is a exuberant fans of clay. exactly. If the word claymate were never used and instead they used clay fan but every thing else remained the same how would people feel. And I know some people hate the term for other reasons so I'm not speaking to that. I don't give a rat's ass what anybody I don't know thinks of Clay fans. Hell I don't care what people I do know thinks of Clay fans. I just use that to prove I'm not crazy. Being a Clay fan doesn't embarass me on any level whatsoever. I wear my Clay tshirts out in my neighbordhood which is deinitely multi cultural. Nobody has ever looked at me sidesways. I'm proud to be a Clay fan AND a Clay mate. Claymates who also proudly support Clay and his charities and have done way more good stuff than bad. Frankly some people think we are nuts just because we love Clay. I will never be ashamed about being a fan of Clay based on some label that has nothing to do with me. I think more Clay Aiken fans spend more time calling other Clay Aiken fans names than all the non-fans in the world combined. We all have our own "niches" of what we're comfortable with and anyone beyond our own little spot in the spectrum of Clay fan "enthusiam" gets to be labelled a Claymate. Not that many people outside the fandom recognize the term Claymate unless it follows "Clay Aiken". For every poster on this board and other boards who comments on other fans' behavior, I can name another fan who sat beside them and/or travelled with them during a Clay Aiken show and has complained about their behavior. It just goes 'round and 'round. Why are we less respectable than football fans? People may roll their eyes at some of them but as a whole it's like a huge fraternity. Only a tiny fringe will paint their faces and/or other body parts but other football fans who see the painted ones don't cringe, turn away or explain to their friends that while they follow the sport they're certainly not like those crazies over there. Tell a football fan that you've got 50-yard line tickets to the Superbowl and they'll say wow, clap you on the back, and proudly introduce you to all their friends instead of wondering whom you slept with to get them. Mention to someone that you went to a Superbowl party and they won't demand an instant recap of every detail of the evening. I think other people will treat us (Clay Aiken fans) by following our lead on how we respect each other. Many of us are somewhat in doubt about how to act, having never done anything like this before, perhaps because we've had to devote a lot of our time to caring for family members and running households. We need to have more confidence in what we do, believe that we have a right to do what we do and enjoy it. We don't need to point to a more enthusiastic fan to justify our actions (I only went to 3 shows but she went to 10 so I'm ok). Rude people need to be told off there and then by the people they affect but we don't need to keep bringing back war stories to our boards as though rudeness were something unique to this fandom.

Hey! Turn it down, I can hear it from way over here! *Puts the volume on Clay at full blast, like the time KAndre and I were blasting at an Escalade in East LA* Ah, much better! Besides... and I know Clay's much nicer than I am on this... but if I had a fandom and I saw that people were NOT signing up at my Official Board and instead hanging around auxiliary boards with free Clack that in my goodwill I haven't sent my lawyers knocking on the door for, I'd clamp down faster than anyone can ask, "Has he blogged?" This is just me... who's very thankful for the extra perks that we get in this fandom, whether or not they're on the OFC contract. The first year of the OFC, people were complaining about not being able to get good seats through the pre-sales. I know that my friends and I have turned up great seats via the pre-sales on many shows -- some people thought that $30 would give them free options to take or pass on the first 5 rows of any venue of their choosing. No, you get a chance at the "fanclub pool" but you still have to work at good seats and you'll be competing with other fans for the best of those. You just won't get this as an option if you don't sign up. Depending on the dates and venues, there will be a few times when going through the normal channels will be easier because a large number of fans are interested in a particular show. The best strategy is still to have both pools to pick from. I always thought membership in a fanclub meant an ID card and some trinkets, nothing more. And I would hate it if if these "he must blog regularly on the dot" complaints force things so that we end up with 52 "State-of-the-nation" type blogs instead of cute, quirky, sometimes meaty, sometimes just fun blogs from the cute guy. Maybe I should just go bake something...

I just read your cute recap. Just wanted to add one thing...the dessert table was right next to where Clay was sitting soooo if you sauntered very casually over to get a yummy piece of pie for the third fourth or fifth time you could see him texting first hand. Nice recap, FromClaygary!!! merrieeee, so that's why everyone at my table was beaming as they arrived with their dessert plates!!! I'm with Annabear in the "Couldn't care less about the superbowl since Joe Montana" team, but I did care that Rafa won!!! Go, Rafa!!!

Nothing to say but good morning! I hope the weather's improving everywhere. I miss him. :nature-smiley-014: Oh and ETA: Is it silly to wish for an announcement of the next event when you haven't rendered clips from the last one?

Couchie, thanks for all that you and all the mods and admins do! Sending hugs to all y'all!!! (plural) I need to point out, thought, that plain text e-mails are even more accessible to more people out there, not just in a controlled manner, so unless you're on a VPN or you're using a pretty strong encryption mechanism (4096-bit or higher, and that's not difficult to do) other people (not just those on your board, and not just the admins on your e-mail provider though they have an easier time of it) could potentially see read random e-mails. On babies and traveling, I didn't let that stop me or limit my decisions automatically. Of course I didn't go traipsing about the country every 2 weeks with my girlfriends while the kids were growing up but when an opportunity arose I did not immediately say, "Oh no! I could never go there / do that because my kids are too little." I figure them into logistics and needs (eg. I wouldn't ask growing babies to change their brand of formula), but I believe that I enriched my children's experiences by taking them with me whenever possible on all my adventures. On the tour with Mylene, wow, what a great opportunity!!! Stade de France brings back memories because DS was a huge soccer fan and wanted to see it. We were all the way on the other side of town but I made sure that we drove out of our way just to give him the opportunity. My kids knew that I cared about things that were important to them, and so years later I knew I could count on them to be excited for me on my "stuff".

<snip> If you don't have all the "backstory" information, then of course you would not understand! That's only natural, but it doesn't mean something is rotten. Just means you don't know why some people have bad feelings, is all. Anyway, I am sure the newsletter will have quite a few readers and hits as it is, unless, like Couchie says, it starts with the creepy blog crap again. It is not like anyone is going to miss any Clay news forevah if they don't read that one particular site. Personally, I never click on anything except this board and one other board, I figure anything important will show up! For me, it's a matter of privacy of information. I'm always glad to find a good source of fun stuff and often will come back to read again. However I will register only at those that are run by people I know because there are sites that make it part of their business to collect private information. There's a lot that can be correlated about you just from your IP address. I'm certain that Couchie and Ansa and ldj do not spend their days bothering about these when they could be staring at pictures of a cute guy instead but since there's been a history of other people collecting names, addresses and other personal information on fans it is good to mention this in a general sense. I'm not accusing particular sites of doing things, google and amazon have have far more on me than any other entities out there (I hope!) but we'd be remiss not to mention it for newbies in the fandom. Remember that article that KAndre linked some time back? Oh and btw, in case you don't know yet... and

If you'll give me both a shirt and a hat since that was the package I won, TBAF won't have to ship mine to me and they can use the ones they have to raise even more money. What do you think? OK you got a deal! Thanks bunches!!!

If you'll give me both a shirt and a hat since that was the package I won, TBAF won't have to ship mine to me and they can use the ones they have to raise even more money. What do you think?

bolding mine And why not? I'm sure after 6 years of observing fan behaviour she would understand. I just said that I was so excited over my roommates' prizes -- I wouldn't want to get on Jerome's list or anything like that.

I think I missed this concert Hee, tribeca! We all wish!!! Preden, I think annabear has posted pictures in the members forum so I think it's ok. Or we can PM her first. If ishe's ok, just go to the Spam thread in the members only forum, and post something like this: (cut and paste the text below) Annabear, Scarlett and preden at the Spam SD: [img]http://www.stripedsocksirens.com/members/Scarlett/RandomCatchAll2006-08/NYC_JAN_188.jpg[/img] ETA: *waves to AAIT below!* Glad you got home safely!!!

Oh, and thank you so much for sending our picture from our last trip to Spam, preden! It was great to finally meet you and here's hoping for more trips in the near future (for the same reason *wink*)!!!

You're not going to believe this but I won something too! I just checked my e-mail and found a note from Kristy saying that I had won a Houston Open shirt and cap (one of those that you donated). I didn't even think to check; I was so excited that I forgot about the silent auction. Eeeeee, we're 3-on-3! We should have bought lottery tickets!!! Uh-oh... what should I tell Kristy when I apologize? I don't think I can say what really happened, that I forgot to claim my silent auction winnings because I was in the Aiken fog. Ideas anyone?

I really don't have much content except to say once again what a joy it was to sit right there and watch "naked" Clay singing "naked" songs. I think the songlist was perfect for that venue and although I'm not really a "sunny 99.1 / mellow touch" radio kind of girl for the most part, I could listen to those songs (and more like them) from Clay forever. I will get to work this weekend to try and recreate the moment for everyone else either through a more thorough recap or other stuff, but meanwhile I'm still deep in the fog and have no wish to emerge. *long sigh!*

This is interrupting my the endless repeat of "This Is The Moment" in my head... but these are a few more: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Charlie and the Chocolate Factory My Big Fat Greek Wedding Under The Tuscan Sun Joy Luck Club Mystic Pizza (snap!) Back to Clay..... lol, kimiye and merrieeee! ETA: Like everything (including global warming) it's Clay's fault. =) ETAA: Really back to Clay....

food movies that I love? Tortilla soup Soul Food are there others?hee Tampopo Like Water for Chocolate Eat Drink, Man Woman Babette's Feast Chocolat Harold and Kumar go to White Castle Supersize Me Fried Green Tomatoes The Wedding Banquet 9 1/2 weeks Sideways more?

Still in the Aiken fog but just checking in to say that I'm home and I hope everyone else made it back ok -- I hope Shamrock is fine, they had 12 inces today. ... *sigh* Wasn't he just wonderful!!!... still up in the clouds ... Just to add something to the current topic: I like that quote about cooking because I also like doing it in extremes -- either minimalistic or no-holds barred. Food-related movies are good too! ETA: *waves to Caro*

And another: I Don't Have The Heart (mpg) couchie, thanks, will sleep on the plane! ETA: And Mandy

*waves back at annabear* Hee! What piano? I didn't notice a piano either. Good luck on your paper! Thank you! I just googled "tiger" images and lucked out with two gorgeous tigers. I like animal print clothing too (*when I'm an old lady, I will likely still be wearing my animal prints*). For me, "This is the Moment" put a giant smile on my face. I would love a Broadway album (maybe I could retire my Mandy Patinkin one then *imagines Scarlett groaning at Mandy Patinkin and Clay in same sentence*). My Linda Eder Broadway album needs a companion. Oh, I loved to hear him sing tonight! It's been much too long since we heard anything like this. With apologies to Ben who's amazing especially with the way he quickly learned POYB, all I could hear was his voice. Mandy? *reacts in the same manner that Sir Robin does to 'Andrew Lloyd Webber'* That album needs to be redone by Clay! One more: Proud of Your Boy (mpg)

I didn't have time to lighten up the clip (the lighting was very dark, just like at the Gala in October) and this is mpg (DVD-quality) but here's a link: I've sent it to geekette so it will be on CH, CV and CU but this is for those who waited up to see it... This Is The Moment (mpg)

We're getting ready to leave and I've dared merrieeee and PerusingOne that if there's a photo booth over there, were going to.... Bye everyone and please wish use luck on the clack policy!

OMG, is that JBT hair!!! (pictures are up on OFC)