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I was at my cousin’s apartment yesterday and dessert was being served. “You gotta try these homemade chocolate chip cookies,” my aunt said. “They are truly delicious!”

Dozens of chocolate chip cookies were laying in a beautiful basket display. I picked one up. It looked “yummy” and was a little rounder than the normal flat chocolate chip cookie. It smelled good. I put it in my mouth. OMG, I thought, how can someone ruin a chocolate chip cookie?

My husband tried one too. “This is terrible,” he said to me.

“How are the cookies?” my sister-in-law asked.

“Pretty bad,” my husband said. I kicked him because the guy sitting on the other side of the table made them! “No, they are actually really good,” he told her.

She had a cookie in one hand and a homemade biscotti in the other hand. Both chocolate chip. Both made from the same person. She took a bite from one then the other. She didn’t say anything and walked away. Later, I found out that she didn’t like them either and tossed them out.

“How can you make chocolate chip cookies with just flour and chocolate chips?” she said. “The butter and the sugar were definitely missing.” I think she’s right. That was the first time I didn’t like a cookie!

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I remember not too long ago my staff and I would sit around my kitchen table in my one bedroom apartment and mail out 400 press releases to the media. A few years later, it was faxes. You would stand there for hours! And then, email. But the media complained. They felt that they were being spammed.

In comes the Online Newsroom… Today, public relations professionals microblog to targeted news media and post the release in the newsroom. If a reporter, editor or producer is interested, he or she will go to the newsroom to check out the full story.

Check out my new weekly TV show where I provide you with some tips….

http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com/show/marketing/708/access-the-media-with-an-online-newsroom-internet-marketing-tips-from-hilary-topper.aspx

Social marketing and business development advice powered by yourBusinessChannel

Come on already, this is ridiculous! Almost every day this week, the weather has been misty, raining or just plain humid and my hair — looks like Rosanne Rosannadanna’s hair from the 1980′s Saturday Night Live season!

Boys, I know you don’t have this worry, but us girls, we have to think of these things.

Today, I was in my Manhattan office and while I was washing my hands in the bathroom, I said, “wow, my hair never looked this bad!”

The woman who was standing besides me laughed. “You know what you have to do darling?” she said. “You have to tease your hair with a comb or brush and put hair spray in. That’s the only tip I can give you.”

“Mmmmm…. good advice,” I said and carried on.

After attending an EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) event this evening and on my way back to Long Island, I was thinking about my “bad hair day.” Should I wear a hat to work tomorrow? Should I put my hair in a pony.

Then suddenly, as I was getting off the Loop Parkway into Long Beach, a car in front of me skidded out from the slickness of the road. He did a 360 degrees right in front of me! I stopped my car in the middle of the road and rolled down my window. My heart was racing. The man behind the wheel was okay. He quickly turned his car in the right direction and drove away.

At this point my hair was standing up from fear. Talk about a bad hair day!

I met the publisher of ComputerUser.com magazine at a local diner. I had heard about his publication for a long time and even remember the print version but our paths never crossed. Although the publication is published out of Long Island, it is a national online publication with more than 250,000 in circulation.

The magazine includes interesting articles such as “How to Get the Most Out of Web Analytics,” to “Improve Your Smart Phone.” It also has includes press releases from various tech companies along with a host of events in the high tech arena. There are free downloads to enhance productivity, popular IT books and more.

Interested in learning more about high tech? Check out ComputerUser.com….

Image via Wikipedia

A good friend of mine passed along a video that was made and produced by middle schoolers at Suffern Middle School. The video really made me think. Students discussed how they felt they weren’t being prepared for the future. They wanted to be more creative and learn in different ways.

We are so technologically advanced and yet, it seems to me that our teachers are teaching backward. And it’s not their fault!

Ever since President Bush implemented the “No Child Left Behind” act, third grade until eighth grade students are prepped for these standardized tests. By doing so, everyone ends up losing.

Maybe the new administration should look at our schools a little closer? Maybe the No Child Left Behind Act needs to be refined? Maybe the old way of teaching doesn’t really work and students need new avenues to explore other things in the world around them?

Check out this video tape and see for yourself – It’s called “No Future Left Behind.” Let me know what you think… http://www.istevision.org/watch.php?vid=4026e3fcd9ee52c75998999b13182242ae1d743e

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