What is so hard??

My husband and I like coffee. We like the actual taste of it, not the taste of the sugar or whatever you put in it. Coffee and cream...hot or iced. That's what we like. This doesn't seem like it would be that hard to get, but the good folks who work at McDonald's can't seem to get that...and I don't get that they don't get it.

McDonald's came out with iced coffee a year or two ago, which comes in regular (sweet), vanilla or caramel. Greg and I would go, whether inside or the drive through and order thusly: "Two large iced coffees, no flavor, no sweetener, no syrup. Just coffee and cream."

Without fail, there would be a pause, and the order taker would read it back to us in an incredulous tone of voice. "You don't want sweetener?"

"No," we would say, trying desperately to keep control of our composure. "Just regular coffee, regular cream and ice. Nothing else. No syrup, no sweetener, no flavor."

"OK," they'd say, like they thought we were nuts and we would surely be sorry. When we got to the window (or stepped aside to wait for our order, without fail, somebody would come over to ask us again. "So, you don't want sweetener?"

"No," we would say a little more firmly. "Just regular coffee, regular cream and ice. Nothing else. No syrup, no sweetener, no flavor."

After they handed us our drinks, we would start to drive or walk away, confident that our request, given in triplicate, had been honored. Almost without fail, we would taste the coffee and find it was sweet. Given that regular coffee and regular cream do not come sweet, that meant that sweetener was added. Sweetener we specifically said THREE TIMES that we didn't want.

I'm not sure how to change this. I don't think you can be any clearer than, "Just regular coffee, regular cream and ice. Nothing else. No syrup, no sweetener, no flavor." The only conclusion I can come to is that America is getting dumber, and that makes me sad. On the other hand, it makes me feel smarter, so yay me.

Michy sent me this video, which had Greg and me rolling on the floor, laughing, tears streaming from our eyes...because it's just so true. Warning: harsh language! Don't play this in the presence of young children or anyone with sensitive sensibilities!

Current Associated Content Review Time

I've heard of long waits for some people, but my Associated Content review time has been quite reasonable for the sparse pieces I've submitted lately...I submitted one on July 24th and got an offer today, the 28th--just four days later, including a weekend. I submitted one on the 15th and got an offer on the 17th...submitted one on the 3rd and got an offer on the 8th. All less than a week.

Everything you do is an article

The other day I was talking to Michy, and I said I needed software that would extract pictures from a PDF. She helped me find one, and it worked great. I was raving to her about how easy it was to use and did exactly what I wanted in seconds.

"Sounds like an article," she said.

"Oh. duh." I replied.

"And a blog post," she added.

"Good idea!" I answered. So I did...I wrote a review of the product (Nitro PDF Professional)for Suite101, and how I'm going to write a blog post about it. Oh...I'm already writing it.

Every day, you do something that can be turned into an article. See a movie, read a book or use a new product? Write a review! Do something that someone might not know how to do? Write a how-to! Hear about or plan to attend an event? Write about it...there are so many things in our day-to-day lives that slip right by us and we don't think about them, but surely someone wants to know about them. Then, each of these articles can spring into others, like I can do an article or two about how to use Nitro PDF Professional, etc.

So, here's your writing prompt for today: find one aspect of your day-to-day life and write an article about it. Then, find one way to take a different angle on the same subject matter (review, how-to, history, profile, etc.).

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebs - Collage - Morph

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Apple Encourages Copyright Infringement

Michy recently brought to my attention that there is an Apple iphone commercial that demonstrates its copy-and-paste functionality by showing a user copying a whole article from the web and pasting it into an email. This is ILLEGAL. For more information on why this is illegal, why you as a writer should be mad as heck about it and what you should do, please read her blog post on the subject.

No I'm not and no I don't!

You're reading an article on the Internet, and you suddenly find yourself starring in a hypothetical situation you could never imagine thinking to yourself. You think, "What in the name of Pete?" And then you think, "Wait a minute. I'd never do that, and I never say 'What in the name of Pete!'"

Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught a completely useless and annoying literary device: putting the reader into a hypothetical situation in a clumsy attempt to "draw them in." I see an exhausting number of articles online that start this way, particularly when I'm rating Helium articles.

"You're sitting in a restaurant, and you see..."

Uh, no I'm not, and no I don't. This sort of thing doesn't pull me in and engage me; it just annoys me and puts me on the defensive. In fact, if anything, I'm less likely to want to keep reading to see what the article has to say. Even if it's prefaced with "Picture it..." it's still hackneyed and a little insulting. I don't like being given directives before I've even read the story.

Don't do it. Don't try to force your reader into being the star of a hypothetical situation. It's not clever, and it's not engaging. Find another way to open your article.