Things are probably going to be a little sparse here in November because I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo for the first time ever – and I’ll be writing on a typewriter! 😀

Bookity

• New releases: AAR (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Linkity from the Pen Addict.
• The first 2018 gift guide from Smart Bitches.
• The 90-Second Newberry Film Festival.
• A little Harry Potter snippet.
• Some amusing writing advice.

Think, Learn, Do, Make

• It’s Asexual Awareness Week through the 27th. 🙂
• “Pushing yourself beyond  your comfort zone” is good, but be aware of the thin line between learning new stuff and PANIC.
• NOPE. At this point, tRUMP just makes me sick and sad.
• Gosh, it’s almost like air quality regulations are good for people instead of corporations…
• “Chris Evans is just as done with everything as we are“.
• There’s a really big food recall going on…
• “Cheat sheet” for alternative therapies that actually work.
• “How marketing created superfoods“.
• 2400 year old intact shipwreck found!
• “Automakers sell performance, but consumers want fuel economy and safety“.
• All US car brands are in “the bottom half of Consumer Reports’ 2018 Reliability Rankings“.
• “100 websites that shaped the internet as we know it“.
• “How to stream free movies from the Library of Congress“.

Cookity

• Red curry vegetable noodle soup.
• No-bake hot water cornbread.
• Chocolate cake with a pumpkin pie inside.
• Apple harvest cake with caramel sauce.

Artsy Crafty

• Linkity from knittyBlog.

Cool

• “Disney princesses as armored warriors“.
• Bee-themed fountain pen.
• Award-winning astronomy photographs.
• Linkity from bookwyrmknits.

Cool or Wha…?

• The weirdly rectangular iceberg in Antarctica.

Wha…?

• …I have questions.

LOL

• Executive dysfunction gothic.
• Cat ghost!
• Elephants and gourds.
• The plate tectonics game! (Hover/long-press for caption.)

Teh Cute

• Red pandas and pumpkins! Baby mountain lions! Zebra and baby!

Reading Update
Bring It On, Burning Bridges, Free Fall and Blood from a Stone (Retrievers 3-6) by Laura Anne Gilman. This continued to be a good series about Wren, whose magic leaves her unnoticed by most people, and her partner Sergei, who isn’t magical at all. If you’re looking for a series that shows relationship development and isn’t filled with explicit sex scenes, this could be your lucky day. 🙂 Lot going on in Book 5 and I put it in time out for a day because I was anxious about how things were shaking out. Book 6 is the last book focused primarily on Wren (and Sergei), but they appear in the background in some of Gilman’s other books.
Miles to Go, Promises to Keep, and The Work of Hunters (Sylvan Investigations 1-3) by Laura Anne Gilman. Good paranormal suspense series about half faun former cop and current private investigator Danny, who suddenly finds he has an employee – a powerful seer with self-esteem issues.

“Look at how kittenish and cute I am!” -Chaos (who is a very non-kittenish 15 years old now!)

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Bookity

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from the Pen Addict.
• Another potential after-the-books future for Harry Potter.
• “Snow Crash showed me the power of physical books“.
• “40+ empowering feminist quotes“.
• Some quotes from A Wrinkle in Time.
• Quote from The Handmaid’s Tale.
• Shakespearian soap.

Think, Learn, Do, Make

• Abigail Disney (yes, THAT Disney) is a One Percenter who has a lot of thoughts about the tax cuts for the wealthy that she neither needed or wanted.
• “Sears’s ‘radical’ past: How mail order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow“. (via neighborhoodr-minneapolis)
• “Why do liberals think tRUMP supporters are stupid?“
• Remember that no one gave women suffrage – those kickass historical women took it.
• A critique of makeup culture.
• “How to not get fooled by IKEA’s mind games“.
• “Robocalls and scams are now one-third of all calls“.
• “How would you have died on the Oregon Trail?“
• “Stop shaming consumers for the sins of corporations and their powerful investors“.
• “How to shut down bad-faith ‘debates’ on social media“.
• “The cultural significance of Chris Pine’s penis in Outlaw King“.

Cookity

• 10 easy breakfast recipes.
• Spaghetti squash.
• 5-ingredient chili.
• Slow-cooker beef and broccoli.
• Cardamom strawberry crisp.

Gluten Free

• Chocolate caramel shortbread.

Artsy Crafty

• Linkity from knittyBlog.

Cool

• Fall in Minneapolis. Very pretty.
• We had a little snow over the weekend…
• I would definitely take a picture of that sidewalk inscription, too.
• “…our farm diaries, which are a lot like normal diaries but with more cows.“
• My 1950 Princess typewriter, made in West Germany.
• “10 dreamy coffee shops around the world“.

Cool or Wha…?

• The guy who can turn anything and everything into a knife.

Wha…?

• A tenrec, apparently. It looks like a bird-mammal hybrid!
• “Candles that light themselves at the push of a button“.

LOL

• Cats through history.
• How cats domesticated themselves.
• Life with cats.
• Bad dog!
• More Pixie and Brutus.

Teh Cute

• Baby red panda! Lioness and babies!

Reading Update
Dragon Justice (Paranormal Scene Investigations #4) by Laura Anne Gilman. Good continuation of this series about a paranormal investigation agency. If you read it, brace yourself. Not everyone on the team makes it to the end.
Volatile Bonds (Prospero’s War #4) by Jaye Wells. Another good addition to this series about a police detective attached to a Federal unit focusing on crime in the city’s supernatural community.
Staying Dead and Curse the Dark (Retrievers 1-2) by Laura Anne Gilman. Good sort of detectivey series about Wren, whose magic leaves her unnoticed by most people, and her partner Sergei, who isn’t magical at all.

“FeedmeFeedmeFeedmeFeedmeFeedmeFeedme!” -Chaos

Have I mentioned before how glad I am that he never grew into his ears (or paws)?!

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Bookity

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from the Pen Addict.
• “How feminist bookstores changed history” (via Book Riot)
• A hopeful take on whatever happened to Susan Pevensie.
• Succinct writing advice from Neil Gaiman.
• Cat bookmarks.
• Cover snark from Smart Bitches.

Think, Learn, Do, Make

• Boom! There it is.
• I ask myself this a lot.
• “Golf Digest helps free man from prison“.
• Consumer Reports on the Facebook data breach.
• European scientists are studying how being online affects mental health.

Cookity

• 10 recipes for sweet potatoes.
• 10 healthy one-pot meals.
• Easy no-bake chewy granola bars.
• 15 cozy fall beverages.
• Pumpkin spice pie fries.
• Ginger pumpkin pie with graham cracker crust.
• Chocolate Rice Krispie treats.
• 10 fast chocolate desserts.

Artsy Crafty

• “21 fall book crafts for Halloween“.
• Linkity from knittyBlog.

Cool

• Getting a Lady of the Lake vibe here.
• Northern Lights in northern Minnesota.
• In which ofgeography has a very weird morning.
• A little Mr Rogers’ “Garden of the Mind”…
• Award-winning nature photographs.
• kmkat is going to be on Jeopardy! A little more about that.

Cool or Wha…?

• Halloween candy with glow-in-the-dark wrappers.
• “Most Stuff” Oreos.

Wha…?

• Mac’n’cheese candy canes. (Thanks, Emma!)
• Pumpkin spice cheese.
• “Minnesota residents call police on rowdy drunk birds“.
• All very good questions about this abandoned button factory.
• “For when you want to look literally eviscerated….but like….with sexy viscera.” Halloween costume FAIL.

LOL

• …and Bill Murray would know weird.
• Zoom Zoom!
• Agree with the original poster’s assessment.
• The adventures of Pixie and Brutus.

Teh Cute

• Baby tigers!

Reading Update
You Had Better Make Some Noise: Words to Change the World by Phaidon Editors. A very good book of quotes tailored to these times we’re living in.
Bookmarked for Death (Booktown Mystery #2) by Lorna Barrett. I only made it about five pages before deciding I didn’t care at all and set it aside.
Crispin’s Model by Max Gladstone. Good creepy Lovecraftian short from the POV of an artist’s model sitting for an artist who pays very well but is decidedly odd…
The Dragon Conspiracy (SPI Files #2) by Lisa Shearin. Pretty good paranormal series about a Southern seer who works as an agent for Supernatural Protection and Investigation in New York City. Her boss is a vampire and his boss is a dragon…
Dead to Rites (Mick Oberon #3) by Ari Marmell. Good mystery/urban fantasy series set in 1930s Chicago about private investigator (and member of the Fae) Mick Oberon. He tries to avoid mob-related jobs, but…
Tricks of the Trade (Paranormal Scene Investigations #3) by Laura Anne Gilman. Good paranormal suspense (with a hint of romance) about an agency of New York City private investigators who are trying to prove to the Council governing the supernatural world that having unaffiliated investigators is a good thing.
A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1) by VE Schwab. Good tale of three Londons (White, Red, Grey) with varying degrees of magic, the man who can walk between them, a thief, and nefarious plots.

“Why aren’t you petting me, Mom????” -Mayhem

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Bookity

• New releases: Book Riot (audiobooks, YA), Tor.com (YA SFF, genre-benders, SF, fantasy), Smart Bitches (romance)
• Book “recommendations for comfort and solace” from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Smart Bitches. And more!
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Roald Dahl quotes.
• “Stephen Colbert made a children’s book out of tRUMP’s post-Hurrican Florence comments“.
• A portable, distraction-free writing device…
• Llama bookmarks and more.
• What are books?
• Cute bookstore in Duluth, MN.
• The story of a background Gryffindor.
• A humorous bit in which James Potter pretends to be the amateur magician that his brother-in-law Vernon Dursley told people he was.
• Harry hatches a basilisk.

Think, Learn, Do, Make

• “…“
• “Conspiracy theories around the ‘Presidential Alert’“.
• “How to delete your Facebook account: A checklist“.
• NASA: 60 Years in 60 Seconds.
• “ALL.”
• Sometimes you just need a little Mr Rogers.

Cookity

• Slow cooker coconut lentil curry.
• Slow cooker taco-stuffed potatoes.
• 10 easy apple recipes.
• 18 fall cakes.
• Soft pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting.
• Cinnamon chocolate pecan pie cookies.

Gluten Free

• Brown sugar shortbread cookies.
• Soft chocolate wafer cookies.
• Pumpkin swirl bread.

Artsy Crafty

• Crochet flowers.
• Linkity from knittyBlog.

Cool

• On growth.
• To remember.
• Black kitty fabric!
• Minnesota in apples.
• Tettegouche State Park.
• “A Cartoonist’s Advice” from Bill Watterson.
• “Full-Body Education” comic.
• “A necromancer falls in love with a healer…“
• Poltergeists help a single mom raise her young son…
• What if Clark Kent’s coworkers at the Daily Planet thought he was an illegal immigrant from somewhere else on earth?
• Be kind.

Cool or Wha…?

• Watching grass grow.
• Moss art.

Wha…?

• Carve a pineapple for Halloween.

LOL

• Camera as toy for lion cubs.
• Cute cat costume cartoon.
• So many questions!
• Groaner of a space joke.
• “Foxes are cat software being run on dog hardware“.
• Biomagnification.
• Life hacks from a while ago…
• The strange fusion of Magic 8-Ball and DnD.
• “The sole reason I still have a Twitter is to watch Chris Evans drag Donald tRUMP.”
• Underrated tweets.
• xkcd on incoming calls. (Hover cursor/long-press to read the caption.)

Teh Cute

• Baby red panda! Red panda and baby!

Reading Update for the Past Two Weeks
Free Agent, Soul Ink, Armageddon Rules, and Wish Bound (Grimm Agency #1, #1.5, #2, #3) by JC Nelson. Ok paranormal/fairy tale series about a woman whose parents sold her into indentured servitude working for the Grimm Agency. (I know, that’s amazingly unhelpful even by my reviewette standards, but pretty much anything else I can say would be a spoiler.) On the plus side, this is a completed series! It won’t drag on forever! 😀
No Hero and Yesterday’s Hero, and Anti-Hero (Arthur Wallace 1-3) by Jonathan Wood. Pretty good series about a cop who ends up in a secret British government agency (dealing with the paranormal) after he sees too much at a crime scene. Maybe it’s the nature of books that use Lovecraft’s concepts and characters, but this reminded me an awful lot of the Laundry Files by Charles Stross. And no one’s injuries really seem to linger past the time when they’re incurred.
Bookburners: The Complete First Season by Max Gladstone et al. 3.5 stars. Good paranormal suspense about a secret organization funded by the Vatican who travel the world confiscating dangerous magical texts. This was originally released serially – I would’ve hated to read it that way. I also think the serial thing contributed to this book’s heft (800 pages) – it could definitely stand to be trimmed down a bit.
Hot Lead, Cold Iron and Hallow Point (Mick Oberon 1-2) by Ari Marmell. Good mystery/urban fantasy series set in 1930s Chicago about private investigator (and member of the Fae) Mick Oberon. He tries to avoid mob-related jobs, but…
Let Some Word That Is Heard Be Yours by Alex Nall. Very good comic story about a teacher having a rough time who turns to Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood for calm and wisdom.
Mid-Century Portable Typewriters: Spotter’s Guide by Nick Bodemer. The book only has 13 typewriters in it. While there are many blank pages included for notes, fewer blank pages and more content/more typewriters would make this a much more useful reference.

“….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” -Chaos (on the left – you can see his greying whiskers over his body) & Mayhem (under the blanket)

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Bookity

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Linkity from the Pen Addict.
• 10 online tools for authors.
• Roald Dahl’s Matilda at 30. (via The Mary Sue)
• Possible secret magical creature heritages of some Harry Potter characters.
• Bookish cross stitch patterns.

Think, Learn, Make, Do

• On doing “something you feel good about doing”.
• Read the whole thing.
• “Discover NASA technology in your life”.
• “All unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men.”
• “This app will terrify you into wearing sunscreen”.
• Octopuses on Ecstasy.
• “Obama and Biden had a pact to stay silent on tRUMP, but it didn’t last long“.
• Maybe scientists don’t understand California’s fault lines as well as they thought.
• “Conservatives shook that Willie Nelson isn’t a conservative must have ignored his entire career“. (I mean, he covered “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other”.)

Cookity

• Easy 5-ingredient black bean veggie burgers.
• Easy chicken potstickers.
• 17 easy veggie sandwiches.
• 10 no-lettuce salads.
• 10 easy vegan lunch box ideas.
• 10 Instant Pot recipes for “lazy cooks”.
• Pesto risotto with shrimp for one.
• Bloody Mary scones.
• Slow cooker pumpkin French toast casserole.
• Salted caramel sugar cookies.

Gluten Free

• Classic cheesecake.
• Chocolate chip monster cookies.

Artsy Crafty

• Linkity from knittyBlog.

Cool

• Tiny gryphons!
• “Street typists around the world“.
• Hannah Gadsby at the Emmys.

Wha…?

• Abandoned presidents’ heads.
• Sexy Handmaid Halloween costume.
• “…Presidential alert system that tRUMP will control.” And where to share your thoughts on this…

LOL

• The fiber arts alignment chart.
• Self care.
• Dragons in chairs.
• Warning: PUNS.
• tRUMPkin.

Teh Cute

• Red panda and baby! Baby red pandas!

Reading Update (Brace yourselves – have I mentioned that I read really, really fast when I’m in a reading mood??! It’s safe to say I was in a reading mood this week.)
The Watercolor Sketchbook Kit by Curtis Tappenden. I only have the book part of the kit ($1.49US at a thrift store), but it was an enjoyable overview of watercolor basics. You’d best look elsewhere if you want something that goes into detail.
Memory Zero, Generation 18, and Penumbra (Spook Squad 1-3) by Keri Arthur. Decent paranormal fantasy trilogy about a police officer who doesn’t remember anything about her life before age 14. Then everything in her life is turned upside down when it suddenly seems as if nearly everyone is out to get her. Delightfully free of sex (but not sexual tension), I wish things had been tied up a little more at the end of the third book. (The books were originally released in 2004/5, then rereleased with new covers a decade later.)
Detective Stories and Cry Wolf (Rivers of London 4-5) by Ben Aaronovitch. Good additions to the series – and I really appreciate the timeline in the back of these that shows you where each of the graphic novels fits with the other books.
Dirty Magic, Cursed Moon, Deadly Spells, and Fire Water (Prospero’s War 1-3, 0.5) by Jaye Wells. Good series about a cop who, as teenager, walked away from her life as the heir to a branch of the magical equivalent of the mob. She’s sworn off magic, but her fellow (non-magical) officers don’t really trust her. And then she gets a chance to work with the MEA – the federal Magical Enforcement Agency.
The Brimstone Deception, The Ghoul Vendetta, and The Myth Manifestation (SPI Files 3-5) by Lisa Shearin. Pretty good paranormal romance series about a Southern seer who works as an agent for Supernatural Protection and Investigation in New York City. Her boss is a vampire, his boss is a dragon, and her wanna be boyfriend is a goblin dark mage.

“One fish, two fish, red fish, NIP FISH!” -Chaos

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