Sparky's Scratches Real friends don't care if you're a little different…

Opening night: April 15th, 2007
Seen: June 19th, 2007
Circustheater, Scheveningen

Last Tuesday we had tickets for the stage-musical Tarzan. It’s very rare when a musical opens in Holland right after opening on Broadway. Most of the time new musicals hit London or New York and several other major cities, before coming to our small country. Not Tarzan though, it’s the second production, after the original opened on Broadway.
I guess everyone knows the story of Tarzan, so I don’t have to explain. The music for this stageshow was written by Phil Collins and includes the beautiful song “You’ll be in my heart”.

From what I understand, the reviews in the US weren’t very good. So the Dutch producers, with Disney’s consent, changed about 40-50%. More action, more flying apes, more humor, and Phil Collins wrote extra music.
I was a bit reluctant to go – the Dutch reviews were quite positive, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. Manon & Sabine have been begging me to go ever since it opened, so I gave in.

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As often, something Caroline mentioned got me thinking.

I found a meme the other day and tagged Caroline, knowing she isn’t too fond of these things, but there are only 5 people on my Blogroll, and I didn’t want to tag strangers. Yes, I know I’ve never met 4 of the 5 people on my blogroll, but I don’t consider them strangers 🙂
And I thought, “this isn’t a must, if she doesn’t want to do it, she can just ignore my tag.”

But she did post the meme along with the comment that got me thinking

…Is it just fun? Is it all about sharing? …is it about linking to increase traffic to your blog?

Call me dumb, but it never occurred to me that by doing memes you’d increase traffic! Shows how ignorant I am, and I’m not afraid to admit it – lol.

I’m addicted to memes, for several reasons. They fill space, so I don’t have to think of something (interesting) to write. People who visit my LifeJournal will know that it is full of memes. Apart from filling space, memes – to me – are also about sharing. It lifts a tip of the veil, visitors get to know me a little better. I love reading other people’s memes and find out things I never knew about them. Heck, I even like reading memes from strangers! Some people come up with the most unexpected and/or funny answers, providing me a great online time.

Another thing… although I am aware that this Blog is public, so anyone can stumble upon it and read my thoughts, I’d like to think that only a few people read it. Weird eh? I know, I know, as a webmaster one of your goals must be increasing traffic, but I’m quite the opposite. Somehow – when writing an entry – I vision the few visitors I have (that I know of), all sitting around the coffee table, having a nice cuppa and a cookie or two and enjoying hours of trivial conversation or interesting in depth discussions (which would include a bit more than just two cookies, I promise you!) 🙂

So, what have I learned today? Memes increase traffic… I (speaking as webmaster now) say: perfect! Watch this space as there soon will be another meme!

Goes off to take care of a huge supply of coffee and cookies for all the new visitors… oh and chairs, I need chairs too!

As found at Daddy Forever

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

1. The Life & Times of a First Time Stay at Home Mom
1. Mom of 2 and Wife of 1
2. BlondeMomBlog
3. Holly’s Corner
4. Daddy Forever
5. Sparky’s Scratches

Next select five people to tag:

1. Caroline
2. Karen
3. Anna
4. Monique
5. Sue

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Trying to get a schedule going for a family with a 2 year old princess and a 1 month old baby.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Probably the same as always – doing something online.

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. Chocolate
2. Pringles
3. Cookies
4. Cheese
5. Chips

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to:
1. Evergreen – Barbra Streisand
2. More than Words – Extreme
3. The complete (4 hours) St. Matthew Passion – J.S. Bach (more than one song, but hey!)
4. Empty Chairs at Empty Tables РLes Mis̩rables
5. Why God? – Miss Saigon

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Buy a gorgeous house with plenty of space
2. Hire a staff to take care of the house 🙂
3. Worldtrip to visit my online friends
4. Spend a month (at least) near London and see every musical there is – more than once if there is time
5. Put the rest in the bank to pay for the kids´s education

Five bad habits:
1. Smoking
2. Eating junk food late at night
3. Getting impatient
4. Not working out at all
5. Worry too much

Five things you like doing:
1. Spending time online
2. Drawing
3. Go to the theatre (musicals, plays, ballets, concerts, you name it)
4. Listen to musical songs while surfing the net
5. Snuggling up with my daughters if I´m allowed to tuck them in (they say they´re too old for this now, so I´m not allowed to do it often, but I know they love it)

Five things you would never wear again:
1. Mini skirt (or any skirt for that matter)
2. Platform shoes (70s child)
3. Bathing-suit (gained too much weight)
4. Belly shirts (see #3)
5. Hotpants

Five favorite toys:
1. Computer
2. Mp3 Player
3. Nintento DS
4. Paint Shop Pro 7
5. CD writer

Appetizer
Fill in the blank: The best thing about where I live is _________________…
* It’s an oasis in the middle of the busiest part of Holland.

Soup
Create a new name for a deodorant (like “Flower Fresh” or “Shower Scent”).
* Raspberry Rain

Salad
What was the last piece of software you installed onto your computer?
* Hitmanpro (I highly recommend it!)

Main Course
If you were to receive a superlative award today beginning with the words ”Most likely to…”, what would the rest of the phrase say?
* …procrastinate

Dessert
What two colors do you like to wear together?
* Light Blue and Dark Blue 🙂 I look at all the clothes in the shops and each blue item just seems to be screaming: buy me, buy me! So I have loads of different shades of blue sweaters, jeans, shoes etc.

This is the kit I used for the “About me” layout. Still haven’t figured out how to save the files at 200 dpi. I followed the tutorial to a tee, but when I check the properties of the .jpg file it still says: 96 dpi. *sigh* Obvisouly my to a tee isn’t what it should be, lol. No patience to go trough it all again, so I’ve put it on my “to do” list… (“She’s such a procrastinator”, I can hear you say… Oh but I have an excuse – I’ve lost the link to the tutorial! Ha!)

The graphics are in a .rar file and included is a TOU text file – please read it!

Enjoy 🙂

Click the thumbnail for a larger preview

DOWNLOAD LINK:

Life’s a Stage kit 3.67 MB