Archive for the ‘News’ Category

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250 Million Video Views on YouTube!

Hey guys and gals!!  I just wanted to let you know that I just hit a QUARTER OF A BILLION video views on YouTube!  That’s “like” 250 million views or 250,000,000!!! The equivalent to the world’s total population in the year 1 A.D.! If I was living back then, then every single person in the entire world would have seen my videos, but would they all have had Internet? Hmmmm…I wonder… Oh.. sorry.. got off track there!

Anyway, I will make a video shortly thanking you all!  But, with toxic black mold taking over my apartment, then zombies eating my head, followed by me having to move out of my apartment (still headless?) to escape the mold.. and now a FULL MOON hitting tomorrow, it will be a miracle if ever manage to make that video!!!

In the mean time, THANK YOU SO MUCH for making me reach that milestone!  You all ROCK, I love you!

Catch me on the O’Reilly Factor tonight – Halloween Edition

Tune into the O’Reilly Factor tonight at 5pm PT/8pm ET and 8pm PT/11pm ET to see me do some HALLOWEEN WORDS!!

Plus.. I will be on Fox Business Channel’s Happy Hour at 2pm PT/5pm ET.

Why dogs don’t like Halloween

Sorry.. Gorby got these pics in an email and wanted me to post this!  I guess he ‘feels’ for some of his poor canine friends!

I actually think some of the costumes are funny.. shhh.. but don’t tell Gorby!!  What’s your favorite?

Rude Tube – Heroes and Villains

Rude Tube returns to Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on October 9th and if you look in the lower corner of the picture above.. who do you see?  That’s right!

Rude Tube picks some of the best videos from the net and they also interview some Internet people ( ) So be sure to tune in to see what it is all about!

Click here to visit the Rude Tube website. And be sure to tune into Channel 4 in the UK on October 9th at 9pm.

Also, subscribe to them on YouTube and follow then on Twitter.

Sexual Words in the Dictionary

Warning… the article I link to is NSFW!  So do not read it if you are easily offended!!

Slate.com did a great piece on why it’s so difficult to put sexual words in the dictionary. First there were “moral” decisions by the creators of dictionaries, then there were legal reasons!  Believe it or not, even though the “F-word” first appeared in a dictionary in 1598, it then disappeared until the 1960s!  That is one of the reasons why the “F-word” and many other sexual words have so many false stories of their origins!

Anyway… I was thinking about making a few videos on YouTube describing the origins of these words.  People seem to use these words quite a bit on YouTube these days, so I don’t think I would be censored this time around.

Some of the origins are really funny.. and some of the false origins are even funnier.  So I think I could have fun making these videos.

What do you guys think?

Here is the Slate article.. check it out.

You can now order an autographed book!

For those of you who couldn’t make it to my book signing on October 1st, you can now order an autographed book from me on the site! Plus a pic if you want.

I was getting a ton of requests for this, so I decided to put together a way for you guys to order autographed books from me.

Just click on the link below and there you will find a form to order the book and a picture if you want one of those as well!  There is a place to put your name for the autograph as well.

Here is the page to order the autographed book.

Book Soup Meet-Up October 1st!

Hey guys!  October 1st is coming up very quickly!  If you live in the Los Angeles area, be sure to stop by Book Soup on Sunset Blvd. at 9:30PM October 1st and say hi!

It should be a lot of fun!  We all had a blast at the New York meet-up.  I will be uploading a video of that shortly.

Please let me know by filling out the form below if you will be able to see me at Book Soup.

Book Soup 8818 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90069  Click here for MAPS!!!

PARKING!  West Hollywood’s parking meters run until 2am! So put money in your meter, OR park across the street and west a little bit in a parking lot that takes credit cards in the machine.. you can put an hour or so in the meter and walk across the street to Book Soup.

Thank you all!

I wanted to thank you all for the kind words you have sent to me via the website, Twitter and email.  It’s amazing how much it helps while I am lying in bed really sick knowing that my students are pushing for my recovery!

I’ve never experienced such a high fever in my life!  As you can see in the picture on the left.. I have become a little green!  I mean… I did find two bite marks on my neck the other morning…. I wonder if they could have caused my illness? Could I be becoming a…   No.. that’s’ ridiculous!

Anyway…. I did want to thank you all.  You guys have all made this dreadful experience that much more pleasant for me!  I really appreciate it so much and love you all.

Now, keep your hands clean, and don’t let any bats bite you on the neck!

Site Design Followup

Hey guys and gals… I’ve been working for days (in my sickness) on making the website more friendly. I like the look of the comments now.. they look clean.

I also widened the site by 20 pixels… which gives me a little more room to put things.

I still have to widen the forums.

BUT.. I need your help!

Where can I make it obvious that there are new posts?

Right now it’s tough to figure out when I have new posts and it makes it difficult for me to communicate with you guys.

Right now I have a little box on the homepage and one on the sidebar.. but they really don’t stand out. I can’t replace the lesson box on the right as that’s the most important part.

I even tried going with the blog format for the site over the weekend, but that ended making my site look like a lot less than it was.

So.. any suggestions would be welcome!  You can comment below for now or in the forum later.

Thanks so much!

-Marina

Site Redesign

In the interest of simplifying things.. I will be doing a MAJOR redesign of the website over the next day or so.

What this means is that things will be broken here and there until the changeover is complete.  Sorry about this… but I felt that it was getting harder and harder for me to communicate with you guys on the site as it grew and grew.  So this new design should make it easier for you all to see the new posts and to go where the action is

UPDATE

I am going to stick with this design and borrow elements from that other design. I liked the clean nature of the comments.. so I will emulate that, plus I liked some other aspects.. so be patient.. I will bring back as much of that other design as I can!