I thought this was an interesting thing to do for charity. I volunteered to participate in a 25 BLOGGERS/25 DAYS contest that is part of the Start With Substance program. The goal is to get readers to join the Start With Substance campaign by becoming a Facebook Fan of the Quaker Facebook page. Readers have to post their Quaker Man pictures there by 9AM 2/4/2009 for the little minions to compete to receive a $5000 donation to a hunger charity of their choice. Consider this your breakfast task of the morning, people (LOL). I need your links before 9AM. Seriously. Check this out: I have to provide link to the Official Rules, which you can read here. Click the link on the page to Facebook. I have to provide a link to the official Facebook page (through http://www.startwithsubstance.com) ... 02/03/2009

My e-mail is out of control and I had to turn my cell phone off today. Seems when you write an open letter to the President people think you are a repository for their complaints, suggestions and inquiries. Since some of my readers were kind enough to take the time to write their questions down and e-mail me their concerns, I shall return the favor and answer them here instead of individually. Thank you for reading my blog. Sam: I am not arbitrary and capricious with my sarcasm and irony. I have no problem saying exactly what I mean, so consider yourself warned. Susan Mangigian's Wordy C is about to make an appearance, so go get comfy people. Ready? Read on. I may surprise some of you with how much I really do know... 1.This is the Fannie Mae site where you can find some of those listin... 01/28/2009

I love when my kid gets that look of Eureka and the light-bulb goes off and you can just feel the excitement bubbling forth regarding a good idea. I've had some interesting e-mail and decided to answer it in public rather than write people individually. For the record, I think that AmeriDream, other DPAs and H.R. 600 are great ideas and I am tired of people pissing on DPA companies as if all DPAs did something wrong or contributed the bulk of the problems regarding the collapse of the housing market. What a load of crap. There were a lot of good companies out there and I lost several very nice buyers because of the hypothetical stupidity of known and unknown peeps of HUD looking for a housing scapegoat and screwing around with the rest of us (possibly because of their personal peeves). ... 01/27/2009

    My kids are a trip. Noah is turning seven in a few days. The older he gets the more he regresses. Stephen's a bad influence on him. It appears that Applied Behavior Analysis works both ways... Who knew a precocious two tear old could cause so much havoc? Step is going to be three in a few months. Seriously. I wonder what that will be like. Little dude thinks throwing my cell phone out the window is a toddler sport. Bad enough my calculators are taking baths in the toilet but now the sound of miniature LCD television displays taking a dive has caught his fancy. It doesn't shatter. It makes a peculiar soft yet reverberating "kquish" sound when you drop one from the fifth floor. Then there's the crisp crack of impact from the casing shattering apart and electronics skipping across the ... 01/22/2009

My Tweet-peep @AutismFamily really has it going on. Not only is she a cool editor in real life, she's a very sweet person who shares really neat websites. Check this one out: http://mombloggers.ning.com/group/amazonassociates It belongs to the MomBloggerClub. It's a small group of really cool mommies who love to blog. The members of the AR Mommy Bloggers writing team is going to go join. We think it will be fun and invite you to come take a peek at this small group of very interesting women. You can also check out Bonnie Sayers, the editor of "Bella On-line:The Voie of Women" here. When you have little minions like mine, you need all the help you can get (LOL). I love her website, so if you are not following my Tweet-peep, you may want to go check her out on Twitter here. :-) 01/13/2009

VideoAd by Mixpo Little Minion TV (The Mind Of Minion. M.C.N.S.Starr) We posted our first commercial in cyberspace with this tag line: "The little minions host fun, cool, think and do tours of New York City neighborhoods and Team Blog about their adventures on the Active Rain Real Estate Network and Localism." We set up our YouTube channel and are editing some video the kids took. We have to set up our LittleMinionTV.com website next. That should be very interesting. This is our first working concept of how we want to open the on-line show. Then we will roll with the neighborhood segments, going hyper-local. 01/11/2009

The Team Video-Blog of Noah Ezekiel Starr, Stephen Isaiah Starr, Carolyn Tann-Starr, Cindy Tsui and Amanda Marie Tann et al We are working on creating a new Team Outside Blog. Active Rain has created some very cool and useful new features that will allow us to produce and syndicate original content together for our collective writing projects. We have 7 AR Mommy Bloggers and 3 non-writers (tech geeks) coming on board to produce some very unique creations that may also open up major opportunities for our new brand. We will be blogging for several causes near and dear to our hearts inclusive of fighting (1) Hunger, (2) Cancer, (3) Autism, (4) PDD-NOS, (5) Graves Disease and (6) Diabetes. It is going to take a lot of work, but will be well worth the effort in the end. We are looking forwa... 01/11/2009

PANI DOLCI BAKERY 137-67 Queens Blvd Briarwood, NY 11435    (718) 526-4407 (718) 569-0908 I was tweeting about attending multiple Christmas parties yesterday and spoofing on my buddies drinking habits when it suddenly occurred to me that I should showcase another favorite neighborhood spot to eat. We had to buy various goodies for multiple holiday events so we got them all from the PANI DOLCI bakery. I love this place. They really know how to do it up right if you need a special creation to highlight any type of celebration. It happens to be our first choice to get kosher foodie paradise goodies. They have a lovely selection of low cal sugar free treats for diabetics as well. If you want to have a gingerbread house created (to be the envy of your holiday peers) you have got to call the... 12/24/2008

http://www.stanleytang.com/2008/12/15/internet-marketing-is-a-team-sport/ Todays's Club Chaos/S.G. Fan Club Twitter Talking Point: Internet Marketing Is A Team Sport Here's an interesting Bio quote: "A 16-year-old kid trying to make some pocket money on-line. #1 Best-Selling Author of eMillions." If you think joining a writing project is a waste of your time, you may want to reconsider. Check out what my Tweep-peep @stanleytang has to say on the subject. Just because he's a teenager doesn't mean he doesn't know what he is talking about. BTW, some of the best ideas I have ever had were inspired by my little minions (LOL). My fave quote on Stanley's post: "And the other thing is teamwork. Yes - teamwork. Business is a team sport. It wasn’t just this one 16-year-old kid doing everything – ... 12/21/2008

Rosemarie Pena ROCKS! Have you seen her bio? Seriously! It's Spanking-A people! Let me quote some info: "Rosemarie Peña is a graduate of Boston University and Rutgers University. She currently serves as President and CEO of I-Pavilion Institute, Inc. and President of the Black German Cultural Society, Inc. whose on-line community has created a global network of persons of color of German descent who are involved in cultural, historical and genealogical research and study. Her memberships include the Graphic Artists Guild, International Webmaster’s Association and the Association of Internet Researchers & Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority, Inc." How cool is that? Awesome! If you are not following my tweet-peep @RosePena you might want to reconsider that. She is always posting very interesting ... 12/21/2008

http://activerain.com/blogsview/845774/Follow-Up-to-the-Money-Train My tweet peep @realtorrose wrote a wonderful post that I think you guys would enjoy. Don't want to spoil it for you so if you're curious about the subject of the conversation, you will just have to select the link and see for yourself. It is something that I wish I had known about a few years ago before I left for retirement from law enforcement and migrated into real estate. If you like what you read there, go follow Rose Robinson. Very nice lady who holds some interesting Twitter conversations.     12/20/2008

http://www.thomasmore.org/downloads/sb_thomasmore/DepartmentoftheTreasury-Complaint.pdf It's moments like these I love being a paralegal obsessed with recreational reading. :-) 18 fascinating pages! You guys have soooooo got to read this Federal Lawsuit Complaint against the bail-out disbursement to AIG. It is a real eye opener. I do not want to spoil it for you so I will say very little up here. Instead, I want you to read this before we start chatting about it. Make sure you download it to your computers so when people think you are incorrect, assuming, or making an unsubstantiated allegation you can prove that you have your source document. :-) I am sooooo gonna be following this case. Can you say, "made-for-TV-movie?" material (LOL). I hope they trigger Congressional hearings. Serio... 12/16/2008

  Uni-sphere, Flushing Meadows Park, Queens County, New York This is our second Club Chaos Eye Candy event where we run parallel but dueling contests: ONE for PHOTOGRAPHY (Dec-ECP12) and ONE for VIDEO (Dec-ECV12). As previously stated, we are looking for your very best eye candy ladies and gentlemen and we want you to submit quality work worthy of a featured post. Club Chaos will be hosting this Active Rain Contest with a little help from our friends, so please pay attention to what is mandatory and what is optional. As requested, we rotated some of the groups and have introduced Fraishe Aire and PAWS into the mix. Each member has a choice of entering one or both contests. 200 points awarded per contest entry. If the work submitted is selected for placement, the 200 entry points will be... 12/10/2008

  Criminal Court, Queens County, New York I was leaving Maple Grove Park when I found myself staring at the Criminal Courthouse thinking, "cityscape sunsets can be lovely. " I love the play of colors on a sun kissed building and decided I would go hunt some Briarwood / Forest Hills / Kew Gardens sunsets for you. I have been tweeting about my girlfriend Susana and thought it would be a blast to take her on my eye candy hunts so we can blog about it together. We usually do Foodie Paradise review activities while she helps me deal with Autism and PDD-NOS issues. I'm thinking I should give you guys a formal introduction, especially since she spends a lot of time with my little minions. I think you would love Susana. My girlfriend is a small business owner with a spanking sense of humor who ... 11/20/2008

The Outside Blog Minion Report October 2008 In Review: Poppy Dinsey   Poppy Dinsey author of "A Thoroughly British Blog" in her A/R post entitled, "UK area in focus - Hove, East Sussex" introduces us to some very lovely eye candy while discussing her new series showcasing geographical locations in the United Kingdom/Europe. Her follow up post, "UK area in focus - Colchester, Essex," gives us insight into the "oldest recorded town in England" and a little bit of fun too if you do decide to take her advice and do the Globrix key word search she suggested. If I had to describe exactly what I love about my girlfriend's writings it would have to be her sense of irony and wit, not to mention the fact that she has a fabulous photographer's eye when she goes out to collect some eye candy. A pe... 10/29/2008

I am really starting to think so. Seth Godin has me convinced that an ActiveRain Group is a movement waiting to happen. We are a highly leveraged set of Tribes connected by A/R, Twitter, Skype, E-mail, Facebook and every other technological tool that brings us together to connect and effect change. You may not think that you, as an individual member, can or has effected change, but you have. You do it every single day. Each one of you, through your blogging, through talking about the things that you believe in, your likes and dislikes, have been truly a remarkable force of change because each time someone views your work you have planted a seed, a thought, a concept that wasn't there before or thought of exactly the same way that you think about it. One person, just one, can make a huge... 10/24/2008

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/09/whos_there_the_.html Check out Seth Godin's Blog for "Who's There" his new e-book that you can download from the above link. The little blurb on his website states that this is his "incomplete guide to blogs and the new web." Very cool. I'm checking this out and am also reminding you guys about the book review campaign for Margaret Rome. Enjoy your day. Regards, Carolyn. P.S. You can download Seth Godin's free e-book "Knock Knock" in PDF format here. Here is the wiki on Seth Godin.     10/22/2008

Manhattan Skyline You would be surprised at how much traffic you run into at midnight in Manhattan. In case you thought it was just a song, I'm here to set the record straight and tell you the that fact of the matter is New York City never sleeps. People are hopping off and on buses, going in and out of train stations, partying on the ferry boats, jogging across bridges and eating out all day and all night... In my neighborhood, Briarwood, located in Queens County, the last food delivery is 2 AM. I know because I have asked various foodie paradise spots down Queens Blvd and up Union Turnpike when ordering and have also made great use of those time frames (especially when I was pregnant and craving for a particular tasty morsel). Over 35 restaurants deliver within walking distance from ... 10/12/2008

84-55 Daniels St, #5G - 2 bedrooms 1 bath about 810 square feet Sold for $168,000 in July, 2007 Winston Co-op is a 6-story building built in 1952. The building is located on Daniels St between 84th Rd and Pershing Circle. The maintenance Fee includes gas, water, heat and real estate tax. It is managed by Aras Properties. 07/20/2008

83-35 139th St, #4D - 1 bedroom 1 bath about 700 square feet Sold for $145,000 in April, 2007 Briarwood Court Co-op is a 6-story building built in 1955. The building is located on 139th St between Main St and 83rd Ave. The maintenance Fee includes gas, water, heat and real estate tax. It is managed by Rachlin  Management. 07/20/2008