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© Copyright Arthur Levine 2008
Words: 578
Keywords: Halloween, Kooks, Spooks, Terror-nooks, Treats, Tricks,

Little painted faces, pointy witch hats, two feet tall clowns, skeleton costumes – it’s that time of year again – Halloween is here.

Tell the truth, when you rummage through the basket of your kids trick or treat candy are you checking to make sure it’s safe or are you looking for your personal favorite candy bar to munch on?

Sometimes I think there is still a little bit of the child left in each of us. Who can forget the anticipation we all felt as Halloween approached. Don’t you remember going out in the dark dressed up in weird costumes with your friends, and depending on your age maybe one parent lingering in the background? Don’t you remember the tinge of fear mixed with a tingle of excitement?

Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, I can still remember the well-intentioned taunt make to smiling parents of your friends and your neighbors. Then there were the nasty older kids who were only out to spoil everyone’s fun and throw raw eggs that splattered on doorways and sidewalks. I wonder if they grew up to be bullies or patrons of some other form of anti social behavior.

Today there are also unfortunately the Kooks. The weirdo’s who place razor blades in candy, who sneak up behind people and punch them and run off with their cherished possessions and rob them of their self-respect. I guess they are a product of the true state of terror we live in. No one is safe any more, not old people or little children, not the infirm or feeble, not the weakest amongst us, and especially unfortunately not on Halloween. And the worst is that there are terrorists lurking out there in every nook and cranny of our economic and social system waiting to take advantage of this era of our discontent.

The term Halloween (and its alternative rendering Hallowe’en) is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the eve of “All Hallows’ Day”, which is now also known as All Saints’ Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints’ Day from May 13 (which had itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints’ Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day
? Wikipedia

Today carved pumpkins called Jack-o’-lanterns are used to scare off evil spirits and for decorative purposes and the holiday has become popular as a children’s event.

Isn’t it time we all returned to some basic values and helped our children celebrate a holiday of treats and traditions? Isn’t it time we tried to take the fear out of every day living for ourselves and for our kids? Isn’t it time we looked inward to our personal clown and started to have some fun again? Why can’t we just enjoy the moment?

Let’s cherish our traditions. Let’s spend some time with our kids. Let’s bob for apples not problems. Let’s have fun again. Let’s give ourselves a treat and not trick ourselves into forgetting who we really are and what we stand for. Don’t let a bunch of kooks and terror-nooks spook you. The guys behind the masks are the ones who are really scared.

Happy Halloween.
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The Barnes and Noble Nook is a stylized e-book reading device which has so much to offer you! It has everything which you can expect to make reading and everything associated with it so very easy. When compared to other trendy e-book reading devices you would find that this one indeed has the ability to steal the show and prove itself much better and improved then the rest available in the market. Completely powered by android, this one comes with both a colored touch screen as well as a six inch E-ink screen. This makes all navigation, searching and typing so easy and hassle free.

The Barnes and Noble Nook come with Wi-Fi accessibility and this helps you to exchange data from any external medium. It can get connected to all and this aptly adds to its specialty of usage. The weight of the device is not more than an ounce and now you can imagine what a feather-like product you would be carrying in your bag! All in just one single configuration – what more can you ask for. The battery life of Barnes and Noble Nook will extend from ten to fourteen days and this would be a scope for you to make the most within a limited span of time.

Though it does not come with a web browsing option or with a text-to-speech feature but it can indeed boast to possess an MP3 player along with a built in speaker. Thus based upon its tenure of 14 days of battery life you can indeed go to share this high end e-book reader with all your friends by making use of smart phones, computers and other e-reader varieties. If you go through any particular ereader blog you will easily come to know that the Barnes and Noble Nook has been successful in capturing the maximum attention in the least amount of time.

Cuddling up with the Nook

In basic substantive ways the Nook operates like other e-readers already on the market, such as the Kindle, its successor, the Kindle 2, and Kindle DX; and Sony’s Touch Edition, Daily Edition, and Pocket Edition Readers. They all use the grayscale E Ink display and have similar fundamental capabilities, although each does have its own particular bells and whistles. What sets the Nook apart is the first-on-the-market full-color e-reader touch screen, which eliminates the need for a keyboard and comprises one-third of its unique front side, which also includes a display screen surrounded by a frame with a user-friendly backward and forward button on each side. The Nook runs Google’s Android OS; and it is the first e-reader to offer an electronic loan option called LendMe, which allows one Nook user to borrow parts of another user’s content for up to two weeks.

Early reviewers of the Nook reported being disappointed in the device’s sluggishness and lack of an intuitive user interface, but they expect any kinks in the software and/or hardware to eventually be worked out, making the Nook a gadget lover’s favorite toy.

Nook sales will receive a powerful boost from the e-reader’s availability to customers visiting any of the almost-800 bricks-and-mortar Barnes & Noble bookstores in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, the new device allows users to download the half-million titles in the Google Books library. This is typical for advanced ebook readers and according to the article “Is the Future of Books in Mobile EBook Reading“, apart from the range of books offered by Amazon for its Kindle, the Sony Reader also allows you access to a large library of books in the public domain that are therefore free to download (Digital Book Readers). The Nook sells for $259.

The Reader: point, shoot, and listen

The e-reader developed by Intel is in a class by itself. Simply called the “Reader,” the handheld device is the result of the collaboration of a long-time dyslexic – and frustrated – Intel employee, Intel’s Health division, and health care industry experts. Like its name, the Reader’s concept is also simple: It photographs labels, recipes, printed instructions, signs, flip chart pages, menus, memos, receipts and other smaller print sources, converts the printed text to digital text, then instantly converts the digital text to speech playback for reading-disabled or blind users and also to an over-sized digital display for low-vision users. The user can wear a headset in public places to avoid feeling conspicuous.

The Reader, in turn, has spawned Intel’s Portable Capture Station to enable Reader users to store larger amounts of texts such as chapters from a book or entire books, newspapers, periodicals and lengthy documents. The Portable Capture Station fits into what resembles a small suitcase, and can be set up on a counter or table, and, with the Reader locked into place, hold newspaper and magazine pages and other large documents which the Reader’s camera can then photograph.

Although the Reader’s price tag of about $1,500 is prohibitive to most individuals, the federal government makes funds available to the states so they can offer low-cost loans to those with disabilities for the purchase of assistive technologies. In addition, the No Child Left Behind Act provides grants and loans to schools so they can purchase assistive technologies for their students who require them for scholastic achievement. Intel works with several associations including the Council for Exceptional Children, the National Center for Learning Disabilities and the National Federation of the Blind to make the Reader available where it is needed, and the Reader has been endorsed by the International Dyslexia Association as an important teaching tool.

The Reader is available through a limited number of retailers, which are listed on Intel’s corporate website and include CTL, Don Johnston Incorporated, GTSI, Howard Technology Solutions and HumanWare.

Breakfast nooks are rising in popularity. Where do your guests usually gather when they visit. The kitchen, of course. There is something inherently comforting about sitting around a hearth, talking with family and friends over a hot cup of coffee or tea. A breakfast nook can be that hearth.

Whether cozy corner or open kitchen plan, you will have no trouble finding the right breakfast nook design to suit your individual kitchen layout and personal style. If you are among those who think of breakfast nooks as a quiet kitchen space set off from the main flow of life, you could face a couple of pub style benches near a back window, place a trestle table between them, and there you have your getaway for stealing a few quiet moments during the day or a gathering place for family game nights.

You neednt restrict yourself to a traditional breakfast nook formation, if thats not your style. You could place your benches in a L shape with table and additional facing bench for extra seating room. Or, your breakfast nook could take the round table with chairs design popular in bars and coffee shops for a more urban look. The soda shop style follows the same design pattern as the traditional layout but uses metal and vinyl for its furniture instead of wood. Its all up to you. Regardless of style, try visually separating your breakfast nook area by laying down contrasting tile or a throw rug to set the area apart. There doesnt have to be an actual physical separation to create the illusion.

You can put your breakfast nook to more than one use if you are short on kitchen storage. The seat of a pub style bench lifts up to reveal enough storage space for extra linens, dishes and pots and pans. Still another design incorporates a pull out drawer into its bench back. What a clever way to hide extra glassware.

If you are the do it yourself type, why not try constructing your own breakfast nook. It can be fun pouring over the different plans to find the one that suits you best. Once you have settled on a design, the real work begins in selecting and cutting the wood and actually assembling your breakfast nook, but if you are handy and love the challenge of a do it yourself project, you will enjoy the process and the fruits of your labors.

Since breakfast nooks are usually small and there is not much wall space, there are not many opportunities for wall decorations or items sitting on side tables to decorate your breakfast nook space.  Instead, you need to use the things that are going to be in the room anyway to be the backbone of your decorating theme.  For example, window treatments or the furniture itself can be decorative items.  You can make quite a statement with these normally utilitarian items.

The most popular way to make an aesthetic statement in the kitchen eating area is with breakfast nook window treatments.  Most homeowners will have sheer curtains or blinds that are actually used to shield their eyes from direct sunlight.  These are not necessarily where you get your decorating bang.  Instead, you can install heavier drapes that remain pulled to the sides.  These drapes can be bright colors, patterned, or textured and those attributes can be the decorating element.  Window valences are also a great way to bring a touch of color into the room.  In addition, they can help continue the lines from your kitchen.  For example, if you install the valence so that it is at the same level as the top of your kitchen cabinets then that will tie the two rooms together.  A third benefit of valences is that you can soften up the angles from the kitchen cabinets.  Cabinets usually have very pointy corners and a boxy look.  The valence can have rounded corners which will soften that room and make it more comfortable to gather in.

There are other ways to add color and personality to your breakfast nook such as table centerpieces, special lighting, in laid tile or stencils on the table top, or cushions for the chairs or benches.  The breakfast nook cushion is great because not only does it add color and texture to the room, but it makes sitting at the table more comfortable.  You can have several different sets of chair or bench cushions so that you can change the look fo the room depending on the occasion or season.  When choosing your breakfast nook cushions remember to not only consider to consider the color or pattern, but also the texture.  Some cushions are plush and traditional and invite sitting, while others are thinner and more modern.  Keep in mind the style of your kitchen when choosing the cushions.  If you have bench seating then you might have to have cushions specially made to fit the dimensions of your benches.

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