Couldn't Stay Awake At All Last Night

I actually wrote first and then sat down to do the blog thing today because I had some great book stuff to write this AM, and well, okay guys, I admit, my books come first. Don't hate me. :)

We stayed up to watched the Oscars last night. Was anyone else disappointed? I admit, I thought Chris Rock would be fun and mouthy and shake things up again. WRONG! It was a four hour snoozapoolza. The jokes weren't mean and funny, only mean, which is one step below being unfunny. When I've heard his schtick in the past, I thought he was funny, mean, and spot-on. Last night was definitely spot-off. Anyway, I'm happy Jamie Foxx won (YAY) and I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby, but I like what Clint's been doing lately, so I wasn't crying in my hot chocolate.

So how am I going to work this into some sharp-edged commentary on writing, publishing, romance, sex, or current events? Actually, nothing comes to mind, you see, tis all about interpretation. One man's funny is another writer's 'eh' and one artist's 'saffron' is another writer's 'orange.' Yes, there's a bit more to the 'billowing, saffron Gates.' The latest controversy. What is 'saffron?' .

So much of what we see, what we hear, what we read is up for interpretation. There's been discussion recently about whether we should rate romances for sensuality so that readers and big retail outlets (can you say Wal-Mart?) know exactly what's in the package. So who decides what gets rated tepid and want gets branded XXX. And why the heck do we need to give books a rating? I have issues with this, possibly due to the fact that I think romance already suffers from a commodity-image and I'm not sure if ratings are going to buck things up or muck things up.

If we're going to have ratings, how about something useful:

1. The Hymen Scale – how many hymen's were killed in the production of this story. People for the Ethical Treatment of Hymen's (PETH) want to know.


2. The Wine-O-Meter – how many times must the hero reflect on his past guilt over a) dastardly deeds which really involved killing the bad man to save the farm b) telling the town slut 'no' and so she goes and throws herself at the town's only serial killer where she is promptly raped and pillaged. Usually involves wine.


3. The Stud Factor – how many times copulation is a) thought about b) performed c) thought about while performing d) performed without being able to think at all

Please feel free to contribute to the ratings discussion. I'm sure there are many, MANY useful things to rate rather than sex.