How to read barcodes

My husband just sent me a wonderful e-mail that includes the list of which barcode indicates which country. I didn't know the codes were set up that way until now.

The very first digits on the far left indicate the country.

This is perfect when a country of origin isn't listed or only a distributor is listed.

 Happy shopping!

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 00 – 019 U.S. and Canada
020 – 029 Restricted distribution
030 – 039 U.S. drugs (see U.S. National Drug Code)
040 – 049 Restricted distribution (MO defined)
050 – 059 coupons
060 – 099 U.S. and Canada
100 – 139 U.S.

200 – 299 Restricted distribution
300 – 379 France and Monaco
380 Bulgaria
383 Slovenia
385 Croatia
387 Bosnia and Herzegovina
389 Montenegro
400 – 440 Germany (440 code inherited from old East Germany on reunification, 1990)
450 – 459 Japan
460 – 469 Russia
470 Kyrgyzstan
471 Taiwan
474 Estonia
475 Latvia
476 Azerbaijan
477 Lithuania
478 Uzbekistan
479 Sri Lanka
480 Philippines
481 Belarus
482 Ukraine
484 Moldova
485 Armenia
486 Georgia
487 Kazakhstan
488 Tajikistan
489 Hong Kong SAR
490 – 499 Japan
500 – 509 United Kingdom
520 – 521 Greece
528 Lebanon
529 Cyprus
530 Albania
531 Macedonia
535 Malta
539 Ireland
540 – 549 Belgium and Luxembourg
560 Portugal
569 Iceland
570 – 579 Denmark, Faroe Islands and Greenland
590 Poland
594 Romania
599 Hungary
600 – 601 South Africa
603 Ghana
604 Senegal
608 Bahrain
609 Mauritius
611 Morocco
613 Algeria
615 Nigeria
616 Kenya
618 Côte d’Ivoire
619 Tunisia
621 Syria
622 Egypt
624 Libya
625 Jordan
626 Iran
627 Kuwait
628 Saudi Arabia
629 United Arab Emirates
640 – 649 Finland690 – 695 China, The People’s Republic700 – 709 Norway
729 Israel
730 – 739 Sweden : EAN/GS1 Sweden
740 Guatemala
741 El Salvador
742 Honduras
743 Nicaragua
744 Costa Rica
745 Panama
746 Dominican Republic
750 Mexico
754 – 755 Canada
759 Venezuela
760 – 769 Switzerland and Liechtenstein
770 – 771 Colombia
773 Uruguay
775 Peru
777 Bolivia
779 Argentina
780 Chile
784 Paraguay
785 Peru
786 Ecuador
789 – 790 Brazil
800 – 839 Italy, San Marino and Vatican City
840 – 849 Spain and Andorra
850 Cuba
858 Slovakia
859 Czech Republic
860 Serbia
865 Mongolia
867 North Korea
868 – 869 Turkey
870 – 879 Netherlands
880 South Korea
884 Cambodia
885 Thailand
888 Singapore
890 India
893 Vietnam
896 Pakistan
899 Indonesia
900 – 919 Austria
930 – 939 Australia
940 – 949 New Zealand
950 GS1 Global Office: Special applications
951 EPCglobal: Special applications
955 Malaysia
958 Macau
960 – 969 GS1 Global Office: GTIN-8 allocations
977 Serial publications (ISSN)
978 – 979 Bookland (ISBN) – 979 formerly used for sheet music
980 Refund receipts
981 – 983 Common Currency Coupons
990 – 999 Coupons

Disneyland tip

Quick Tip:  If you are going to Disneyland in Southern California and go on Star Tours, be aware that there are more than one video scenarios to go through. I discovered this when I went this past week. I went on Star Tours early in the day with my family and enjoyed a hectic ride through Naboo and other places. Then at the end of the day I caught a last ride on Star Tours and this time I was taken through the interior of an asteroid. 

I don't know how to guarantee you catch the different scenarios, but they do exist.

Enjoy.

Reinvention

As I ponder the reinvention of this blog, I have been submitting manuscripts: short stories, novels, and poetry. The later triggered a thought.

Over the years I have written lots of poetry, mostly for person reflection, and most I wouldn't ever bother submitting to a publisher. Yet, it might be fun to share it here. So enjoy the reading.

"Brain Sculpture"
by Heather Hobson


The brain is like a sculpture
in need of careful carving.
Each new experience
is another chiseled line.
Every learned fact,
be it names of planets
or simple math equations,
creates a painstakingly planned detail,
forever engraved upon the sculpture of the mind,
which is only finished
when the sculptor no longer breathes.
The question then remains,
will it be an artistic masterpiece
or the feeble doings of a lunatic?

Contests and Submissions

Another afternoon has been spent researching publishers accepting work and contests. This research is almost a full-time job in itself. I remember when one only had the Writer's Market Guide in hand and that was your guide to the publishing world.

For those interested I have entered a flash fiction story titled "Ancestor Fish" with authorstand.com.  If you sign up, you can read my story and vote on it. This is a new venture for my writing, and I must confess, that "Ancestor Fish" is one of my older stories and I have done nothing with it in more than a decade.  I felt it fair to give it a little fresh air, while at the same time not "risking" my more valuable stories.

Also, this website is free to enter stories and there is a cash prize, so those of you with stories might want to consider it.

I am trying hard in my research to find contests with out fees and paying publishers.  Right now it appears most contests want money and most publishers aren't paying.  At least submitting through the internet means I don't have to pay for stamps and envelopes any more.

P.S. Thank you commenter of my last blog!  I really appreciate some else struggling with blogging too.

Worst Blogger ever and great writing website

I think I'm coming close to being the worst blogger ever. Besides only remembering to blog every three months or so, I don't think I'm blogging about anything terribly interesting, especially since I don't have a fan base yet.

Thus, I'm considering how to reinvent this blog.

Meanwhile, anyone who does stumble on to this page might want to check out www.duotrope.com. This is a free website with great listings of places that are currently accepting submissions in all genres, including fiction, children's, nonfiction, and poetry.  I've started submitting a few manuscripts to the publishers they have listed.  I will let you know what happens.

Blogging and Wedding

My best intentions for being faithful to a blog have not pained out. I'm certainly not one who will be every able to make money writing blogs. I'm just not that attached to blogging, though I love writing.

I survived all the wedding plan.  I'm relieved all the grand event is over, yet I would love to plan a wedding again without all the pressure.

One advice to anyone planning a wedding, do not ask bitter, single friends to do anything at all! That was my husband's and my biggest mistake.  Our saboteur took off with the bridal and bridesmaid's bouquets and we didn't have the flower for our formal shots. We ended up making due with the flowers off the pews.  The person was only supposed to take the tossing bouquet.

This same person also tried to end our wedding early by passing out the bubbles more than 30 minutes before she was supposed to. All of a sudden I found people blowing bubbles at me. I was aghast. They weren't suppose to be doing that until we were actually leaving.

To stop people from leaving and thinking things were over (after all we had the place for the party for 45 for minutes and had paid for an additional hour afterward for clean up), I grabbed my brother on to the dance floor to dance. As I past the Man of Honor, I told him he was next. That halted everyone. 

Other little hiccups happened, such as the groom stepped on the hum of my dress and popped the bustle button off. Of course that is why you pack the sewing kit.

Looking back, I really wish I had been a guest at my own wedding. That photos turned out great and everyone looked happy.

Again, my big advice, don't have single bitter friends (especially those who have any reason to be jealous) to do anything.

I do hope to write more sooner than later.

writing life on hold-wedding and day job have taken over

Sigh . . .my writing life is on hold. That's not the way I want it to be.  Now that my day job has started up again, my days are eaten away.  The evenings are dominated by the wedding.

I did originally suggest to my fiance that we elope and get married in this great old castle in Scotland.  I'm wishing we did that.  Every day we have one to five glitches with the wedding.  Today my seamstress canceled my dress fitting for the third time in four weeks and the replacement batch of bubbles came half-evaporated like the last batch.

Of course, at least this isn't as bad as two weeks ago.  The day was my first one back to full day working and on that day my matron of honor resigned her post via a note in the mail, an ex-boyfriend e-mailed, and my wedding band was screwed up three ways by the jeweler.  Since then utter chaos has surrounded the wedding.  I'm not sure if I will replace my matron. I'm thinking I just may go with my two bridesmaids and be done with it.  It's not like my matron helped me with a single thing.  She resigned because she didn't know she had to come to a rehearsal.  Ugh.  She's married and been a matron before.  You would think she would know this.

I won't even get into the catering and baker issues. That is an epic in itself.

My fiance said the other night that wedding planning is made so hard because it tests the relationship. I guess, but some of what is going on is beyond what I think should be happening.

Wish me luck for the next coming weeks of planning please.