Paparazzi Necklace Giveaway

So I'm taking a break from my NBC Olympic rant to do a Paparazzi Accessories giveaway. I've been selling Paparazzi as an Independent Consultant for about 7 months and LOVE it. It's so very easy. All the products are either $5 for adult pieces or $1 for children pieces. You make 45% commission on every piece you sell. I have about 200 pieces in my inventory currently with plans to add more as we head into Fall Festival season. People are always shocked with they see the items because at $5 you're thinking it's cheap jewelry. It's not. It's about the same level as Target or Kohls. We can sell it at $5 because I don't have any overhead. People just go crazy when I bring out my products and I've had friends come over after I tweeted that my new shipment arrived and buy it directly from the shipping box. Parties are always a hit since we make them simple and easy. No presentations to listen to, no order to wait on and at $5 it's all affordable. But less talk more give away.

 This is the piece I'm giving away. It's blue and one of my best sellers. To enter just fill out the entry below. Open to U.S. residents 18 years and over.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

And if you're interested in joining one of the best and fastest growing home based business. Click here to sign up. You can start for as low as $40. My consultant id is #4043.

Here's what you missed part 2

So on to the next section that we here in the states didn't fully understand. Our lack of understand might have more to do with us vs. NBC. It's about England's National Health Service (NHS). First I just want to say something to the people complaining about how England was trying to shove their politics down our throats. Really?!?!? Are you really that simple. That while Danny Boyle was in his planning meeting trying to think of idea's that represented England he was like "Oh let's do one on the NHS cause it will piss off the Americans." I'm pretty sure our political issues didn't even cross his mind. Just like you have no idea what their Parliament is arguing about right this second, I can assure you that the English people care about that much with what our Senate is doing. 


Back on to the subject at hand. The segment in question was called, " The second star to the right and on till morning." which for you less read among us is a quote from the book Peter Pan. Peter Pan was written by Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie. Remember this as I'll come back to it later. The segment was about the English love of the NHS and about the imagination inside all children . To give it some context (without any political interjection by this writer) the NHS  is the umbrella term for the type of health care system used in the United Kingdom(UK).  It's funded by income taxes and covers all citizens, residents and even visitors (under some circumstances) of the UK. It was started in 1948 as the UK was recovering from World War 2.  The British cherish the NHS and that love was put on display in the Opening Ceremony. The scene was hundreds of beds with children being rolled around by nurses in historical nurses uniforms.  There was also a moment with actual nurses and children from the Great Ormond Street Hospital. The Great Ormond Street Hospital is a children's hospital in London and it has a long and rich history of pediatric care dating back to 1852. It's a charitable hospital which relies on the NHS to cover the cost of day to day operations and donations which allow it to be on the cutting edge of children's medicine .  It's also well known for receiving the rights from J.M. Barrie for Peter Pan in 1929 which has given the children's hospital a large amount of funding. That's how those two subjects are tied together for the purposes of the Olympics.  The segment goes on to explore the vast history of English children's literature with everything from Mary Poppins, the Queen of Hearts to even He who shall not be named of Harry Potter fame. 


Now with this added context maybe it was less about politics and more about Britain being British. 




P.S. So if you want my personal feelings about the NHS and how it relates to us as a county then you could watch this. 


  

Here's what you missed.

I'm even angrier about the NBC's hatchet job on the Opening Ceremonies. I was finally able to watch the BBC version of it and things made so much more sense with their explanations. We should have known for a show as British as that was that having a British commentary would have been miles above the inane blathering of the NBC crew. Here's what you missed:

-Kenneth Branagh was playing the part of a historical figure. He was playing Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was an English mechanical and civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards, the Great Western Railway, a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionized public transport and modern engineering. That's kinda important to understand what what going on with the change from the green, lush landscape with children playing into the dark, smoky landscape with smoke stacks and men in top hats dancing around. It represented the change that England underwent as they entered the industrial revolution. 

-Further along in the show after the pause for the remembrance of the two world wars you see 4 groups enter into the arena. Most people picked up on the bright colored costumes of the Beatles representing the 60's but the other 3 were left without any explanation. The first was the wooden ship. Again more context is needed. The wooden ship represented the MV Empire Windrush. It brought the first large group of West Indian immigrants to the UK after the Second World War. This is important because it the role the the colonies have played on English society.  Second group was the gentlemen in bright red coats. They are the Chelsea Pensinoers. British Army veterans who live at Royal Hospital Chelsea, a retirement and nursing home.  The third group was the people wearing the black outfits with the white designs (which were actually pearls). They are the Pearly Kings and Queens,  an organised charitable tradition of working class culture in London and who raise money for London based charities. 

And that was just in the first thirty minutes.....

Check back for more explanations.

NBC has lost it's mind!!

As a lover of all things British from their books, tv shows and music I was very excited to see the art that was the Opening Ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics...that is until NBC got a hold of it. It was horrible. I copied this from the NBC Olympic wall:


Sarah Khan NBc's butchering of the London Olympics Opening Ceremony
10. Repeated derision and backhand compliments of any country not named the United States
9. The repeated reliance on mentioning how war-torn various nations are or have been instead of mentioning their athletes
8. Commenting on North Korea by mocking Kim Jong-Il's alleged 11-holes-in-one golf game after they have already caused a delay in competition after perceived political slights
7. Four-hour tape delay in the social-media era
6. Spoiling the cauldron lighting
5. Inserting Idi Amin into conversation as Uganda was marching
4. Speculating that the Maldives can fight rising sea levels by winning medals
3. Giving zero camera time to Barbados and Ukraine
2. Cutting of the athletes', coaches' and judges' oaths
1. Cutting of the London bombing memorial segment for a Michael Phelps interview

Dishonorable mentions:
* Referring to San Marino as "sort of an island"
* Going to commercial in the middle of a segment
* Insisting on mentioning the deceased Omar Bongo as Gabon marched, over the 1-1 draw with Switzerland their men's soccer team had already achieved
*Stated speculation that Greece will never host the Olympics again
*Referring to Borat as Kazakhstan marched
*Making the Djibouti joke during a major world cultural event
*Spoiling the industrial-era and National Health Service segments right as they were beginning
*Making a big deal over the lack of a minute of silence for the victims of Munich
*Repeated mangling of countries' names
*Making reference to the Falklands War as Argentina marched
*24 commercial breaks

I so agree with everything in this statement.  The NBC coverage was achingly bad. The commentary provided by Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Bob Costas was worthless and many times bordered  on racist. It was like going all the way to Broadway to see a show only to have the guy next to you talk the entire time. I could understand the need for a play by play if we didn't share a common language with the British but we do so their constant need to repeat what we could already hear was pointless. Another thing unless you've been living under a rock or have never cracked open a book in your life you pretty much understood most of the larger culture references from the ceremony which were the only one's they were explaining to you anyway.

Another issue I have with the coverage is there were whole segments of the show cut out. For the life of me I can't understand why as it was taped and rebroadcast. Did your editor not know how to pick up in the same spot as he left off? It's kinda like seeing a movie for the first time after only watching it on tv. You realize that the plot makes much more sense now that you're seeing the film as it was originally shot and not "edited for time". I don't even care that it wasn't live, but why was it edited?

I feel like someone stole the dignity, honor and well ceremony from the Opening Ceremony. Oh and NBC I'll be steaming the closing ceremony live so you can go take a hike.