Driving in to work today, I heard a great story on OPB about a doctor in India who prescribes Charlie Chaplin DVDs to his patients.  He practices ayurvedic medicine, which looks kind of interesting.

I love the image of sick people hobbling in to exchange their silent movie for another.  It really made me smile all day long.

Also, evidently, in India, they have groups that get together to laugh.  Imagine getting together with a bunch of friends and instead of griping about the things that aren’t working in your lives, you just sat and laughed.  It reminds me of the “ha ha” game we used to play at sleepovers.  You remember that game?

Someone lies on their back and another person lies on their back, putting their head on the other person’s stomach.  Everyone lies down so that everybody has their head on someone’s stomach, and everyone is connected.  Make sense?  Good.  Then the first person in the chain says “ha”.  The second person says “ha-ha”, and so on.  The goal is to get through everyone, increasing the ha’s as you go – without laughing.

This is nearly impossible.  The word “ha” makes your stomach jerk, which makes the other person’s head bounce, which is funny.  Pretty soon everyone is totally laughing, which makes everyone’s heads bounce around.  Seriously, try this at the next cocktail party you go to.

Wouldn’t that be excellent?  Why don’t we do these things as adults?  I do these things, but I don’t get invited to a lot of cocktail parties.  I’m not sure there’s a correlation.

My sister sent me this link yesterday. Pretty cute. The baby totally made me laugh.

And then this Parkour totally made me want to become a ninja.

So Cathy (my sister) and I decided that I’ll become a kick-ass hugging ninja, executing covert flipping-hug-attacks. Awesome.

(Mad props to Today’s Big Thing.)

Check out the new Laugh page!

I’ll be posting more video, text and audio. Join in! Post a laugh, or send it to me and I’ll post it.

Fun!

My awesome neighbor (one who comes over for covert s’mores) left a couple of wonderful little cookies and a well-worn cookbook on my counter the other day. So, I fully agave-ized the recipe and made a batch tonight. Here’s the converted recipe. Enjoy!

No-Sugar Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Walnut Cookies

-1 1/2 cups rolled oats
-1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
-1/4 teaspoon sea salt
-1/2 cup agave nectar
-1/2 teaspoon maple flavor
-1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1/3 cup chopped walnuts (remember, these are bad for pets)
-1/3 cup grain-sweetened chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine oats, flour and salt in a bowl and set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix together agave, maple flavor, butter and vanilla.
Add wet and dry ingredients together and mix well.
Stir in nuts and chips.

Wet your hands and form 3-inch cookies. Place onto lightly greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 15-20 mins. until edges begin to brown.

To make vegan, sub margarine for butter and use vegan chocolate chips.

This recipe makes 12 3-inch cookies, or you can make 24 2-bite cookies.

I’m eating one now…yum.

As you may have noticed, there are now ads appearing on MidLeap.  No, the site was not hijacked.  I just want to be prepared when my site goes viral.  It would be a travesty not to have Google ads up and running when the hordes arrive.

For those of you who don’t know how bloggers make money, here it is:  advertising.  Companies pay Google to place their ads on websites, and Google pays the websites to actually host the ads.  The payments come for one of two things.  Some websites get paid for each click.  If a reader clicks on an ad, the hosting website gets paid.  Other websites get paid by the view – usually they get paid less for a view than a click.  For every reader who views an ad, the website gets paid.

This means a couple of things.  First, there is now content on MidLeap that was not written or designed by me.  Second, I have not put a stamp of approval on any individual ads.  That means I don’t personally endorse any of the products or ideas portrayed in the ads. This will be come quite evident…

Google is very secretive about how it matches ads with website content – but it does try to match these two things.  Makes sense, right?  Tell people who are reading about the Italian language that they can purchase language instruction.

But why Chinese?

And, I understand that I’m writing about a lot of food in the Portland category, but seriously?

Not so sure this is my audience, guys.

And this.  This is perhaps my favorite.

For real?  This is the ad placed in the “Politics” category?  Wow.  Yeah.  So, let me reiterate the fact that I have not approved, nor do I endorse these ads. I do, however endorse and approve of Google ads, as they will soon be paying me.

I haven’t clicked on any of these ads – I think I’m under contract not to – and I’m not supposed to ask you to click on the ads (I know I’m under contract for that).  Fotrunately, my mom clicked on one, thinking I’d put some new fun link on the site, so I got a full report.  That was before this post and before I’d put the qualifying “Ad” above the little ad box.  Not sure how I’m supposed to trick people into clicking now.  I’m sure as heck not relying on the ads to be matched with the content…

I mean really.  How does this relate to working?  Then again, maybe I should cut Google some slack.  I’m not sure what kind of ad I’d match with articles about superhero dress-up and getting bit by a parrot.