Contest(s)

• There’s still time to win a Spiraldex self-inking stamp, lined journal, two fountain pens, and some ink samples from Bookwyrm Knits! Closes 8 am PDT, April 30.

Bookity

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Against linguistic prescriptivism.
• Librarians were pretty underwhelmed by Ivanka’s support.
• “Chris Hadfield is proof of the power of sci-fi“.
• “When gender bias extends to the animal kingdom: CS Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy“.
• Hmm. Maybe it’s time to reread Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson…
• “A 3350-song playlist of music from Haruki Murakami’s record collection“. (via Largehearted Boy)
• Some hockey romances to get you into the Stanley Cup playoff spirit?
• There’s an American Gods coloring book on the way.
• If you’d like to know more about Traveler’s Notebooks…
• 20 products for pun lovers.
• 11 bookish skirts.

Think, Learn, Do, Make

• How to put on a sweater with a cat on your shoulder.
• “Introverts and extraverts as artists“.
• The Starbuck’s Unicorn Frappuccino isn’t going over so well.
• Looking to own a Frank Lloyd Wright house?
• Bill Nye answers science questions.
• How to make a compass.

Cookity

• Honey mustard curry chicken.
• Gingery poached egg soup.
• Roasted cauliflower and lentil bowl with sweet potato hummus.
• Smashed chickpea avocado sandwich. (via The Kitchn)
• Roasted eggplant and brown rice bowl with turmeric tahini.
• 20 quick and easy vegetarian breakfasts.
• 20 hearty vegetarian casseroles.
• 20 high-protein vegetarian recipes.
• 50 salads.
• Rustic honey and almond naked cake.
• One-bowl yogurt and honey olive oil cake.

Artsy Crafty

• Knitted billboards and more – activism by knitting machine.
• “Create your own Lovecraft horror: Knitting the Great Race of Yith“.
• Knitting linkity from knittyBlog.
• Knitting linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• Rube Goldberg machine as action film.
• Macro photography journey to another planet.
• Linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• Star Trek bathing suits.
• Clear coffee so it doesn’t stain your teeth.
• Climate change coloring book.
• Narwhal toothpick holder.

Wha…?

• “Balenciaga creates a $2145 version of IKEA’s $1 tote bag“.
• Chainsaw-powered tricycle.
• “15 idiotic internet of things nobody asked for“.

LOL

• Canadian provincial weapons.
• Intruder alert!
• “But… it had bullet points…“
• Humans are weird: Aliens discover the mom friend.
• Bad dog!
• Autocorrect and alcohol.
• The problem with the 7-11 on Mars. (Hover cursor/long-press to read the caption.)
• Identification chart. (Hover cursor/long-press to read the caption.)

Teh Cute

• Polar bear and babies! Baby otter! Reindeer and baby!

Reading Update
Make Your Own Ideabook with Arne & Carlos: Create Handmade Art Journals and Bound Keepsakes to Store Inspiration and Memories by Arne Nerjordet & Carlos Zachrison. If you’re looking for a completely different take on art journals… Arne and Carlos make their own journals (involving a sewing machine) and collage pretty much everything into them.
The Complete Book of Bookbinding by Josep Cambras. Good indepth information on binding and repairing books, with an emphasis on using leather. Very traditional book structures.
Spell Blind (Justis Fearsson #1) by David B Coe. Good urban fantasy about a former cop turned PI whose magical abilities come with a price – a price that cost him his job as a cop.

“feedmefeedmefeedmefeedmefeedmefeedmefeedmefeedmefeedmefeedme” -Chaos

Chaos gets a little wild-eyed in the hour(s) before his dinner…

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Contest(s)

• Blodeuedd’s giving away a copy of Back to Your Love by Kianna Alexander. Closes April 16. US Only.

Bookity

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Pens and science.
• A picture I took recently.
• “41 ways to have a more bookish spring“.
• When you forget the word for something… (via maderr)
• When manicures meet books.
• When cakes meet books.
• On bullet journaling.

Do, Think, Make, Learn

• Things to remember on all social media.
• Why do shoes come untied?
• Meet Synalpheus pinkfloydi.
• How cephalopods evolve.
• “New research shows that too much time on Facebook could be making you sad“.
• Tour the dying malls of the US.
• If you still have a LiveJournal, be aware of some changes since its servers were relocated to Russia…

Cookity

• Almond butter granola.
• Carrot souffle.
• Greek-style tuna salad.
• Cheesy hashbrown breakfast casserole.
• Roasted asparagus grilled cheese. (via The Kitchn)
• 10 easy slow cooker chicken dinners.
• Loaded black bean nachos.

Gluten Free

• Pupusas.
• Passover sponge cake with tiger nut flour.
• Flourless chocolate and almond layer cake.
• Bittersweet chocolate chocolate chip cookies.

Artsy Crafty

• If you’d like to participate in a yarnbombing at the Minnesota State Fair…
• Knitting linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• Structures of the World.
• Watch parts sculptures. (Nicole! You must see the dragon!!)
• Adopt part of the planet.
• “She persisted“.
• Chris Riddell’s illustrated “The Bewlay Brothers” (David Bowie).
• Linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• Solar system in a bottle.

Wha…?

• Candy-flavored string cheese.
• Burger King’s stupid commercial goes wrong for them. Google fixed the issue… and Burger King changed their commercial to cause the issue again. ~rolls eyes~
• Nicolas Cage cookie.
• Belle statue made from Peeps.
• Am I the only one who thinks that building a stabbing robot could go terribly wrong?
• “Republicans compare Lincoln to Hitler and Trump to MLK. What is even happening? -Mass hysteria“.

LOL

• Most common dog commands.
• All about hockey, based on tumblr, “not watching any games for longer than 15 minutes”, and guessing.
• That terrible Pepsi commercial, fixed.
• Autocorrect and smells.

Teh Cute

• Baby Bighorn sheep! Kittens! Baby penguins! Kittens! Cheetahs and babies! Baby clouded leopard! Baby meerkat!

Reading Update
McLuhan for Beginners by W. Terrance Gordon & Susan Willmarth. A relatively easy-to-digest visual introduction to Marshall McLuhan’s work in media studies.
The Victoria Vanished (Bryant & May #6) by Christopher Fowler. DNF. I think I’ve just run out of steam on this series. Tapping out.
The Artist’s Library: A Field Guide by Laura Damon-Moore & Erinn Batykefer. Pretty good look at ways artists (visual artists, performing artists, musicians, etc) can use public libraries as resources and inspiration. The first half was the most interesting for me and had some great journaling/creativity prompts that I’ll be trying.
How to Be Human: Diary of an Autistic Girl by Florida Frenz. What is says in the title. It’s good, but pretty short. My favorite part was the forward, in which Frenz really nailed how it feels to be autistic.

*derp* -Chaos

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From Thursday, May 11, through Thursday, June 1, I will be taking a bookbinding class that’s required for my Book Arts Certificate (and which is always offered on Thursday evenings for some reason). Since Thursday evenings are my time for putting linkity together, I have a dilemma. A month without linkity seems a little extreme, doesn’t it?! How would y’all feel about maybe two Saturday linkities during that time?

Contest(s)

• Bookwyrm Knits is running a contest through the end of the month and the prize includes fountain pens, some ink samples, a self-inking Spiraldex stamp, and a blank journal. Make sure you read the details – comment early, comment often. 🙂 Closes 8 am PDT, April 30.

Bookity

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Tor.com (genre-benders, scifi) and Gizmodo (scifi and fantasy)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Extended version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
• The 2017 Hugo Award finalists.
• “When meditation doesn’t work, try journaling to stay sane“. Yes. Do try it! 🙂 It has been immensely helpful for me.
• “10 everyday phrases that come from printing“.
• “Scientists create a wheel of old book smells“.
• High school vocabulary test.

Think, Learn, Do, Make

• Hostile micronation warning!
• On scientists naming things.
• States of matter.
• How do centaurs eat?
• “The mystery behind Minnesota’s Devil’s Kettle waterfall has finally been solved“.
• Maybe another piece of the complicated puzzle that is celiac disease.
• “Court rules Civil Rights Act of 1964 also protects employees from sexual orientation discrimination“.
• I am unsurprised that we are stressed by climate change.
• But hey, Minnesota is the least-stressed state. 🙂
• April’s unusual holidays.
• Explore historic London with a combination of Google maps and old photos.
• Infographic of the most expensive ways to cross the US.

Cookity

• Chopped chickpea salad.
• Weeknight vegetable stirfry.
• Cheesy vegetable melts.
• Feta salsa.
• No-bake sheet pan yogurt lemon tart.

Gluten Free

• Pasta frittata with goat cheese.

Artsy Crafty

• Make your very own Wonder Woman plush uterus.
• 3D printed knitting.
• Knitting linkity from knittyBlog.
• Knitting linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• Truly spring must be on its way to the Twin Cities…
• LEGO Nye’s Polonaise! (That’s not going to mean much to you if you don’t live in the Twin Cities.)
• LEGO version of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 trailer.
• Scifi short about an astronaut.
• A little more from Elsewhere University…
• Dinosaur mugs.
• Linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• 2001: A Space Odyssey swag.
• Upcoming X-Files book for kids.

Wha…?

• tRUMP on SNL.
• Cap’n Crunch infused beer.
• “Scientists want to use color-changing rainbow poop to diagnose your bowel problems“. (“Ma’am, you’re either dying or you’ve eaten a luridly colored Oreo recently – we just can’t tell.”)
• “You can now rent a Texas home that looks like a cowboy boot“.
• Cadbury Creme Egg pizza.
• Spaghetti doughnuts.

LOL

• Tiny Godzilla!
• For scale.
• In which we are all Ivanka tRUMP’s neighbor.
• Basketball autocorrects.
• Security advice. (Hover cursor/long-press for additional text.)

Teh Cute

• The owl and the pussycat (no pea green boat in sight)! Cheetah and babies! Baby penguin! Kittens! Baby kea! Baby lion!

Reading Update
White Corridor (Bryant & May #5) by Christopher Fowler. I gave it a couple of chapters, but it wasn’t working for me at all. It felt different from the other books in the series somehow. DNF.
Battle Street Bolero (Bone Street Rumba #3) by Daniel Jose Older. Very satisfying conclusion to this trilogy.
Improbable Libraries: A Visual Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Libraries by Alex Johnson. Very cool look at the many, many different ways that libraries reach people and people reach libraries around the world.

“What socks?” -Mayhem

Oh, these socks? 😉 These were for my SIL’s birthday… her March 2016 birthday. I finished them the day before her March 2017 birthday. Yay?!

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Contest(s)

• Blodeuedd’s giving away a copy of Wanted and Wired by Vivien Jackson. Closes April 4. US only.

Bookity

• Linkity from Smart Bitches. More linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Cover snark.
• Literary London.
• The Card Catalog.
• Lin-Manuel Miranda’s anti-writer’s block playlist.
• Clever.
• Literary genres summarized in a sentence.
• “The five stages of overdue library books“.
• 20 new Canadianisms.
• Free books and tea coloring page.

Do, Think, Make, Learn

• Virtual tour of Tokyo.
• Your cat probably likes you.
• “We redacted everything that’s not a verifiably true statement from tRUMP’s Time interview about truth.”
• Try journaling if meditation doesn’t work for you. (10/10, would recommend trying journaling if meditation doesn’t work)
• Whoops, it might actually be 15000 steps instead of 10000.

Cookity

• Spaghetti squash with asparagus and ricotta.
• Roasted cauliflower tacos.
• French bread pesto chicken pizza.
• Smoky roasted vegetable hummus bowl.
• 20 recipes using chickpeas.
• 13 grain salads.
• Weeknight skillet lasagna.
• Sweet potato latte.

Gluten Free

• Rice flour.
• Frosted carrot cake quinoa bars.
• Easy cereal bars.
• Quinoa with roasted broccoli, leeks, and almonds.

Artsy Crafty

• Knitting linkity from knittyBlog.
• Knitting linkity from kmkat. More knitting linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• Ghost story.
• Beware the Grumpy Semi-Sentient Force of Nature!
• Paper cranes. (via alexwhitehall)
• Aww.
• Cool, but I started to feel a little height anxiety looking at it.
• Yeah, that’s a good attitude to have when doing this experiment.
• Surrounded by falling dominoes.
• Patrick Stewart voicing a dragon.
• Linkity from kmkat. More linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• Scream bandages.
• Butterbeer ice cream.

Wha…?

• Just no. (And what the heck is “salad cream”?!)
• Naked tRUMP statues.
• Um.
• Plush cheese puffs.
• 3D printed cheese.
• Add a nice flaming pile of skulls to your backyard.
• Executive coloring book.

LOL

• This perfectly sums up black cats.
• Some cute little cat cartoons.
• Simon’s Cat and camouflage.
• xkcd and flag design. (Hover cursor/long press for additional text.)
• The Cake Wrecks test for a pure mind.

Teh Cute

• Baby and cat! Maned wolf and babies! Baby pandas! Wattled cranes and baby!

Reading Update
Ten Second Staircase (Bryant & May #4) by Christopher Fowler. Pretty good addition to the series, as Bryant and May struggle to close both a current case and one of their cold cases while the Home Office looks for ways to shut down the Peculiar Crimes Unit.
Half-Resurrection Blues (Bone Street Rumba #1) by Daniel Jose Older. Half-alive, half-dead, Carlos works for the NYC Council of the Dead, dealing with problems between the living and the dead. I was a lot happier with this before the tragic love interest showed up. :sigh:
Midnight Taxi Tango (Bone Street Rumba #2) by Daniel Jose Older. Good continuation of the series – this adds several other points of view, which was good, as Carlos definitely wasn’t my favorite of the book.
Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #1) by Jodi Taylor. I have really mixed feelings about this one. While it was a pretty enjoyable read, every similarity to Connie Willis’ time-traveling historians of Oxford annoyed the heck out of me. Plus the first-person POV character, Lucy, is one of my least favorite types of characters – she’s the type that has nearly everyone half in love with her and her natural charisma and leadership qualities shine through, blah blah blah. (See Anita Blake for reference.)
Handmade Books by Ray Hemachandra. It’s a coffee table book for a very, very tiny coffee table. Lovely to look at, but one you should get from the library instead of buying (unless you find it used, as I did). The materials used on the included books range from egg cartons to bird spines to acrylic sheets to copper.
The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan. For a book published 5o years ago, this short book has aged very well (beyond a few references to the technology of the times). Still can’t believe that we didn’t read this in my graduate program, since so many authors name dropped McLuhan.
Sidney Crosby: The Inspirational Story of Hockey Superstar Sidney Crosby by Bill Redban. Awful. Wikipedia is probably more informative and the writing is definitely better. Plus 66 pages is only achieved with a large font and lots of empty pages between chapters, etc.

“…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” -Chaos

Chaotic stealth tabby!

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Pace yourselves, people – no linkity next week because I’ll be at another book binding class during my linkity making time.

Bookity

• New releases: Tor.com (fantasy, scifi, genre benders)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches. And more linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• The ALA updated its test for spotting fake news.
• Kids’ book about particle physics.
• Literature meets coloring.
• On empathy and reading.
• Handmaids on the streets of Austin.
• Walden, the video game.
• Oh, snap!
• Woman reading mural.

Do, Learn, Think, Make

• The reproductive rights hero we sure needed.
• Last Week Tonight takes on the tRUMP Don’t Care Act.
• “Godless parents are doing a better job”.
• Meet Boaty McBoatface.
• Best science photos.

Cookity

• Lentil and chickpea soup.
• Slow cooker coconut and green curry pork.
• Beef and broccoli fried rice.
• Turkey and greens skillet pasta.
• 20 quick dinner recipes.
• Cranberry creme tarts. (via maderr)
• Root beer float cake.
• Chocolate chip cookie dough cake. (via queeniegalore)
• Irish potato candy.
• Matcha and dark chocolate popcorn with sea salt.

Gluten Free

• Brownie-filled hamantaschen.

Artsy Crafty

• On Monday, there were actual pictures of knitting on this blog.
• Knitting linkity from kmkat. And more.
• Knitting linkity from knittyBlog.
• Make your own Calvin & Hobbes time-travel terrarium.

Cool

• Cuddling with Anubis.
• Defiant girl versus the bull on Wall Street.
• More in the “Humans are weird” post.
• Mathematical limerick.
• 3-D printed miniature solar systems.
• Amazing cover of “The Sound of Silence”.
• LEGO tape.
• Hamilton, the LEGO set?
• Linkity from kmkat. And more.

Cool or Wha…?

• “Keyboard that looks and feels like an old typewriter”.
• Lightsaber grill tongs.
• IKEA bike.

Wha…?

• I have questions.
• Pancake-scented hot tubs.
• Jeans with knee windows.
• Bacon taco shells.
• Movie theaters with jungle gyms.
• “Peeps, Oreos, & 7 other things that turn your poop strange colors”.

LOL

• You’ll never watch Fantasia the same way again!
• *blink blink*
• Cake Wrecks meets Ken. And Barbie.
• Chat systems. (Hover cursor/long-press for additional text.)
• Stop-motion LEGO hockey music video. I guess.
• Oh snap.
• Truth. Not necessarily humorous, actually, but politics is like that these days around here.
• An extremely brief history of Canada.
• Whoopsy.
• Autocorrects about money. About grandfathers. About cars.

Teh Cute

• Takin and baby! Fishing cat and baby! Baby otters! Panda and babies! Baby grizzlies! Baby clouded leopard!

Reading Update
The Water Room (Bryant & May #2) by Christopher Fowler. Solid addition to this series about a pair of 80-something detectives in London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit. Again, not necessarily a fast-paced read, but very engaging.
Seventy-Seven Clocks (Bryant & May #3) by Christopher Fowler. This one’s about a Bryant and May case from the early 1970s. If anyone guesses whodunnit on this one, I will be beyond surprised!
Child of Fire (Twenty Palaces #1) by Harry Connolly. Dark urban fantasy about a guy, freshly out of prison, who’s working for a powerful spellcaster as she tries to find the source of a magic that’s killing kids in a small Oregon town.
Game of Cages (Twenty Palaces #2) by Harry Connolly. Good continuation of this series in which Ray starts out assisting an investigator for Twenty Palaces who’s trying to get information about a predator being auctioned off. Things fall apart really fast…
Circle of Enemies (Twenty Palaces #3) by Harry Connolly. I didn’t realize this paranormal/urban fantasy series wasn’t continued past this book. D’oh. The ending does leave things in an ok place, I guess. But still. Hmph.
What We Found in the Sofa and How It Changed the World by Henry Clark. Cute ya scifi book about three friends who discover a mysterious sofa sitting near their school bus stop and then their lives get really, really weird.
The Book That Proves That Time Travel Happens by Henry Clark. Good ya tale about two middle-school boys helping a girl who works at the circus find a mysterious item – and then things get weird. Fun read, with unexpected social commentary.
The Last Dragonslayer (The Chronicles of Kazam #1) by Jasper Fforde. Delightful ya tale of an indentured foundling trying to keep a magical talent agency running in a world rapidly losing its magic.
Salsa Nocturna: Stories by Daniel Jose Older. Very good collection of interconnected stories about a half-dead guy who works for the NYC Council of the Dead, solving problems when the living and the dead intersect. Apparently, if you’re planning to read Half-Resurrection Blues, it’s helpful to read this collection first.
Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Map Making by Jill K. Berry. Highly recommended if you’re intrigued by the idea of making creative, artistic maps of yourself, where you live, where you travel, and where you dream.
Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman. Very good take on cleaning and organization – much more realistic than some! 🙂 I liked the focus on preventing those exhausting marathon cleaning sessions, which I am prone to. Plus the author actually acknowledges that if you have a chronic illness (be it of body or brain), you’re probably going to need to modify things a bit. As you might surmise from the title, if you can’t handle a lot of cussing, this isn’t the book for you.

*SCHLURP* -Chaos

*purring* -Mayhem

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