This coming Sunday is the 63rd Annual Prime Time Emmy Awards. That time of year when we celebrate excellence in national primetime programming. Or do we?

Let's be completely honest here. Few of us watch these shows anymore, and with the advent of the DVR, if we do watch, we are likely to just record it and forward to the few awards we care about. Unless of course you are fortunate enough to have some gay friends who throw a fabulous Emmy bash, in which case I am seriously envious of you and can you please get me invited to their Oscar party?

Sadly, these days, most of America doesn't really care about the Emmys and if the care at all it's just about the red carpet fashion. Joan Rivers will be sharpening her claws and her tongue just for the occasion in preparation for her usual bawdy observations and low-humor quips. Thank goodness for Closed Caption! You don't actually have to listen to her.

But here's something that I'm really wondering about. While I'm sure that these awards are still very important to the actors, directors, screenwriters etc as well as the networks, do they actually have any influence whatsoever on the viewing audience? With the overabundance of channels and programs to watch, not to mention OnDemand and Netflix instant watch, does the general public put and stock into whether or not a show wins awards? I don't think so. I think people watch what they like and don't watch what doesn't interest them and if their show got an award - great! If some show they haven't the slightest curiosity in should sweep the Emmys it's not going to make them tune in. I think back when we had just a few stations and fewer diversions to entertain us on a Tuesday night people did care. Maybe not a huge amount, but it told them where the quality was and the network with the more awards was likely to have the better shows in the next Fall lineup.

What do you think? Do you feel Emmy awards have any influence over viewers and their choice of what to watch these days?

You see them every week. They are more imperishable than cockroaches. Garbage pickers. No, I don't mean the guys who go through the crap some guy has hoarded in his bard for the past 50 years to find some treasure to restore. I'm talking about the people who come around and take all your recycling and then pick through your garbage cans just in case you forgot to put a can into the recycling bin.

I know it's a strong word, but it really applies here. I hate them. Yes, hate. I know they say once you put the garbage on the curb it's not yours anymore, but let me ask you this; what about those of us who live on narrow streets with no sidewalk and our trash cans and recycle bins never actually leave our property? How is that different than when my trash cans are down by the side of my house all the rest of the week?

You're probably asking why I care and guess what? I'm going to tell you. I care for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it's unsanitary. With all the disease problems we have these days and i watch these parasites go from one set of trash to another, never restricting themselves to solely the recycle bin. Always going into the trash bags, tearing them open and rummaging around then moving on the next house. That's disgusting! And you come home without thinking a thing about it and grab that barrel and lid and put them back together and drag them back down where they belong, and now all those lovely germs gathered from dozens and dozens of bags of trash before you are all on your hands and clothes.

Then there's the fact that they are tearing open these bags. You take the care to make sure everything is securely ties up and now if it's a windy day suddenly your street is covered in trash, thanks to the pickers. And the trash collectors aren't going to pick it up. It will blow all over the street, your yard, your neighbor's yards. How nice.

And then there's this. This is what really annoys me. I don't know how it works where you live, but in my town, our recycling bin is supplied to us by the town. It is designated for recyclables that the town has contracted with a company to pick up and dispose of. My town receives an amount of money based on the amount of recycling gathered and that money goes to help my town. Now some people might say 'Oh how much could they really be getting? It's not enough to matter." Really? Consider this: one trash picker makes enough from collecting cans to make his car payments and pay his car insurance. That's just one person out of dozens - literally dozens - picking trash in one town. Add all that up and think what that might come out to. It would come out to a lot of reduced or free lunches for needy kids at the schools as well as other educational programs. Actually, it doesn't really matter what it would be used for, the point is, it would be used for something that tax dollars wouldn't be needed for.

Now, when I drink my Diet Sprite and rinse out the can and put it in my recycling bin, I have a choice. I can choose to take those cans back to the store and get the deposit back for myself, or I can choose to put my town provided recycling bin out for the town contracted recycling company to pick up so that the money for those recyclables will go to benefit my town. At no point in time am I making a choice to have some low life come and pick through my garbage, spreading disease and take money away from my town so they can drive a better car than I do without bothering to work a regular job for it.

I really believe a low should be passed. If someone puts their recycling in those town/city provided bins and puts them on the curb on pickup day, they should then be considered property of the town and to collect them should be stealing. That would put and end to the trash pickers.

From time to time, I get asked things about my relationship with Kin, the people I mention in my book and what will happen in upcoming books, etc. I thought I would address a few of those things here.

I've been asked why I don't go into more detail in the love scenes. I did mention this before in another post, as well as in the book, but I'll mention it again. I may kiss and tell, but I don't 'you know what' and tell. At least not in detail. Personally, I can't stand reading things with ridiculous euphemisms for the male anatomy and silly, flowery descriptions of what goes on between a man and a woman. And I sure as heck am not about to reduce my personal love life to torrid, soft core porn for entertainment purposes. I've got nothing against erotica if that's what you're into. Great, go for it! But remember, I'm talking about my life. I'm baring my soul here. Let me keep something to myself.

Some have asked if certain types of creatures and supernatural beings will show up in my books. Really? Am I clairvoyant now? It wasn't so long ago I would have sworn on a stack of bibles.... hmm, yeah, I believe in God but not too religious. Ok. I would have sworn on the fate of every Ring Ding in the world that vampires absolutely did not exist. And yet... here I am blogging about my book series featuring my vampire boyfriend, not to mention shape shifters and faeries. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that these other species are real and in my life. I haven't considered the possibility of the existence of other beings let alone asked for confirmation or introductions. Please, I can only take so much in such a short period of time. If and when any new mythical creatures should become un-mythical (heaven help me!) you will read about them in my books.

I love this one. I have been asked if I am always so angry or always so quick to angry. Well, let me put it this way. Go back and make a list of all the things that happened to me and the time frame in which they happened. Keep in mind, among other factors, that I live in the house I grew up in, where I should always feel safe. That the only weapon I had against Leontine was that I could get under her skin. And that I was forced to place my trust and literally my life in the hands of my new vampire boyfriend whom I hardly new. And in case you didn't get it, I had just found out that vampires were real! I had a butt-load of really huge crap to try and deal with in less than 72 hours. It's easy to armchair quarterback and say what you think you would do or what you think I should have done, but unless you are actually there living it with your life on the line and your home being destroyed, you really don't know. Give me a little break, ok? And keep in mind that what you are seeing as anger might also be fear and insecurity. And I do believe that I happened to mention somewhere along the line that I was fond of sarcasm. :)

Are you ready for this one? Someone asked if I was "setting up" for a love triangle between me and Kin and Mike. Whoa!!! WTF? First of all, this is my life I am writing about. I am not "setting up" for anything. Second... ew! I think Mike is a great guy and all, but... aside from the fact that he's way too young for me, it would be like taking advantage of someone's little brother. I do not think of him that way. Not to mention, Kin and I are still at the beginning of our relationship and you are looking for me to screw it up by involving another vampire? What's wrong with you people?

And last but not least, will Kin and I get married. Ugh..... gee, good question. I have no freaking idea. We haven't been dating that long. Who knows what might happen?

So, I hope that answers some of your questions. Keep 'em coming!

Hero

I admit, I love a bunch of YA shows like Pretty Little Liars, Switched at Birth, The Lying Game etc. And I've been seeing ads for all the new Fall shows coming on. It occurred to me that almost all of the female leads in just about all of these shows have a butt-load of money. Ok, they're parents do, but it amounts to the same thing.

They wear expensive clothes, have their own cars at 16, naturally have cell phones and laptops. That goes without saying. But the clothes! And the accessories! Unless they're using really good knock-offs, some of these teens are sporting bags that cost more than I earn in a month!

It's pretty sad when a woman in her 30s is watching a show about a 16 year-old and envying her enormous walk-in closet full of designer clothes, shoes and accessories that's bigger than my bathroom. Yeah, ok, it's fiction, I get it, but still. The people writing these books that the shows are based off of, the people buying and reading these books, and the execs deciding to buy the rights to these books and make them into shows obviously think this is a reasonable portrayal.

And on one show, a parent was cavalierly going to write his son a check for up to $1,000 for settling a poker debt! Again! Even though he was perturbed that this was a recurring problem, he was still quick to pull out the checkbook and offer up the money. When he started quoting figures up around three grand then he got really angry. And, same show, the parents called in the two daughters sick to school to go out shopping for cars for their 16th birthday. Yeah, because they don't sell cars on weekends.

But even the shows that try and come off as more mainstream, I just keep looking at the way these girls dress and they are almost always in dresses or skirts and humongous heels and super decked out. When I was in high school - which wasn't all that long ago - if you got dolled up like that you were trying too hard to impress someone. What happened to jeans and hoodies? Apparently, none of these families have heard of Old Navy.

And they can all go out any time of the day and night. Yeah, I know, it would screw up the plot line otherwise. I guess part of me is jealous. I want to go back to being 16 with a new sports car, a wardrobe that cost more than the yearly income of Average American Worker, and is so vast I almost never have to wear the same thing twice. I want to wear Mac and other designer make-up when I'm still a kid instead of Cover Girl and Maybelline and whatever's on sale at CVS. I want designer shoes and boots to coordinate with each and every outfit, with matching purses. None of this one purse in the Fall for Back to School and you use it until it wear out crap. Oh wait! I still do that.

What is with the bizarre Dairy Queen commercials? Bubbles with kittens? Rock n' roll falcons? Mary Lou Retton in a piñata? Does any of that make you want to run out and buy a Blizzard?

Well, ok, granted, if you're anything like me, just the mere mention of Dairy Queen is enough to make you want a blizzard. But seriously, is this an effective ad campaign? Is Dairy Queen aka DQ not already a household brand, known far and wide across the USA? It's not like an upstart company trying to build brand recognition with crack-pot guerrilla tactic advertising. They're already well established.

Sooooooooo - then what the hell's up with the dumb ass commercials? I don't think they are clever or funny. In fact, it makes me question the sanity of both DQs top executives and the PR firm they are using. Just think - somewhere there is someone getting paid a ridiculous amount of money for this ad campaign. It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Not that their previous campaign with the disembodied talking lips was much better. Too Rocky Horror. And I love Rocky Horror. I'm a member of the Official Fan Club! But I don't want Rocky Horror hawking my DQ. Just too creepy.

Oh you silly, silly DQ people. Don't you realize that your products sell themselves? Don't you know that in places where your shops are only open seasonally, customers go running through the streets announcing opening day like Steve Martin getting a new phone book?

Hey - go back to using the Dennis the Menace kids! They were cute. Who doesn't like cartoon kids? Better than a rock n' roll falcon. Even if he does mention Boston.

I've been asked if book 2 will be coming out soon. Well, I suppose that depends on what you call 'soon'.

If all goes well, I hope to have book 2 available in December (don't hold me to it though, life with a vampire is very uncertain). Hmm. That would make a heck of a bumper sticker wouldn't it? "Life with a Vampire is uncertain". Can't argue with it.

Frankly, there's enough that's gone on for a few books, but I can only write so quickly. After all, I've got to actually live my life in the mean time and do all my work etc. But I'll do my best to get it out to you asap.

In fact... what am I doing here? I should be writing!

Catch ya later!