In which I have to write my entire post in html because WordPress is being daft

Think you can figure out what the mysterious items are from Eryka’s purse before March 20? If so, you could win a $50 KnitPicks gift certificate!

Over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, you could win a copy of Peter S. Beagle’s novel A Fine and Private Place, plus a copy of his new short story collection, We Never Talk About My Brother.

Largehearted Boy’s giving away three classic Dickens’ novels – comment by March 18 for your chance to win.

So, so wrong.

Google’s tracking our browsing history in order to target ads better, but you can opt out.

The Periodic Table of Typefaces is pretty cool.

If you’re a Moleskinne fan, check out the desktop icons.

Very, very cool bookmarks.

Top 10 reasons that knitting is better than therapy.

Ah, yes, this reminds me of my attempts to keep Chaos off the counters and table. And really, have you given enough thought to your zombie attack survival plan?

Thanks for Cyn for the link to this Osaka cat cafe. *ahem* I’m sure some of us you could run one of these from home…

Beware – Red Tango has more cute kitty merchandise available…


Reading Update
Ravenous: The Dark Forgotten by Sharon Ashwood. Witches and vampires and werewolves and demons and ghouls, oh my! This looks like it will be the first book in a new series, and I can only hope that the next book is as intense and enjoyable to read. Definitely recommended.
Tempt Me With Darkness (The Doomsday Brethren, Book 1) by Shayla Black. Wizards! And a warrior cursed to immortality by Morgan le Fay. The writing’s a bit clumsy at times, but either it improved as the book progressed or I got so involved with the story that it didn’t bother me anymore. I’m off to see if there are more books in this series. Maybe it’s just me, but there were two characters who reminded me of Voldemort and Snape… (Oh, I won this book over at Midnight Moon Cafe.)
Wicked By Any Other Name by Linda Wisdom. The third book in the series that started with 50 Ways To Hex Your Lover is another enjoyable chicklitty paranormal romp.
Raven: A Novel of the Cleveland Undead by S. A. Swiniarski. An excellent non-series vampire novel written in 1996. Highly recommended, especially if you enjoy a good mystery with some amnesia tossed in. (This was part of Blood and Rust: Two Novels of the Cleveland Undead, but while The Flesh, the Blood, and the Fire was equally well-written, it was a historical mystery that never really captured me, so I didn’t finish it.)
The Red Heart of Jade and Eye of Heaven (Dirk & Steele, Books 3-4) by Marjorie M. Liu. Kick butt paranormal folks working for a mysterious detective agency. Recommended.
Night Fall and Night Shadow by Cherry Adair. More T-FLAC wizards! Woot. Much as I enjoy these, I must remind you that they are not the best-written books you’ll ever find.
Strong and Sexy (Sky High Air, Book 2) by Jill Shalvis. I’ve now finished this trilogy, which was okay contemporary romance/romantic suspense. But now I have to wonder if every main male in Jill Shalvis’ books has a scar across one of his eyebrows.
Mean Streets by Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, and Tomas E. Sniegoski. Very good stories about Harry Dresden, John Taylor, and Greywalker Harper Blaine. I suspect the Remy Chandler story was good, too, but I’ve never been able to get into that series, so I skipped it. Definitely recommended if you’re a fan of any of these authors.
The Better To Hold You by Alisa Sheckley. A very different paranormal romance about werewolves. Parts of it had promise, but in the end, it was too disturbing for me and just not that good.
Magic in the Wind (Drake Sisters, Book 1) by Christine Feehan. I actually read this novella a while ago, as part of the Lover Beware anthology, but having read most of the Drake Sisters’ series recently, I picked up this standalone when I saw it at the library. While the later Drake Sisters books are better, I continue to just shake my head at the s3x scenes.


“I am a vampire panther girl! Rowr! (Were you really, really scared?)” -Mayhem

A Pre-Spring Walk with Mysteries

On Thursday when I drove to work, it was -7F. Yesterday afternoon when I went for a walk? +55F. Crazy!

After a bitterly cold winter, Minnesotans embrace the outdoors at temperatures that might make other parts of the country shiver. People were eating outside, and some were even wearing shorts.

At Bob’s Java Hut, a biker coffee bar, the first hardy motorcyclists congregated.

And brunchers basked outside the Bryant Lake Bowl.

A little yarn mystery that I noticed:

Mysterious rocks that appeared on our sidewalk during my walk:

And a mysterious Sphinx-like creature that appeared in my living room:

“Worship me. It is my due.” -Mayhem

The work, it be killing me this week…

…but! I am employed! I mostly enjoy my job and my coworkers! Right?

Author Barbara Bretton is giving away some more yarn – enter before Sunday evening if you’re interested.

Make sure you stop by moderncat today and poke around through the posts from this past week – it was Toy Week and they’ve had lots of bonus giveaways of intriguing kitty toys. (Speaking of toys… beware!)

Read an Ebook Week is almost over, so you’d better hurry up if you’re interested in the ebooks that were free and/or discounted for the week!

Do you read TECHKnitting? I recommend it. The latest post has some great tips for the ordinary chain bind off on circular knits.

Brace yourselves – this is painfully, painfully cute. And isn’t “floofy” the perfect description? Black cat overload!

How to take pinhole pictures with your digital camera.

Yet another clever litterbox hiding technique from ikea hacker.

Readability looks a nifty little tool to add to your browser’s bookmark bar – click on it, and it will reformat a website to make it more readable. Sounds very handy for sites with weird colors or too-small fonts, doesn’t it?

Aw – a tulip USB hub, if you’re feeling particularly spring-deprived.

This doesn’t surprise me – DST may have negative health consequences. As someone who’s definitely not getting enough sleep this week because of it…

Some nice pictures from downtown Minneapolis during last week’s big snowstorm – the last picture is from behind the Mary Tyler Moore statue.


“Neener neener, big kitty! This is my toy and you can’t play with it!” -Mayhem

“Oh yeah? Who wants to play with your silly pink feathers anyway?!!” -Chaos

Can you tell we’ve had lots of feline discord this week?! Maybe it was the full moon… Or DST starting. Or a disharmonic planetary alignment.

Son of Bibber

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

“Oh no!” -Chaos (sound of fleeing)

“Crap.” -Chaos

“I just wasn’t quite fast enough, darn it.” -Chaos

“Ah well, no use whining about it…” -Chaos

“…when it’s so easy to get free and flee!” -Chaos

*insert annual whining about springing ahead for Daylight Savings*

Author Barbara Bretton is giving away more alpaca silk – you can enter her contest until sometime March 10. (While you’re there, check out the picture of Laced with Magic, sequel to Casting Spells.)

*gasp* Betty Crocker gluten free baking mixes?!

This one’s for Margene and Carole.

I have to make some time to listen to This American Life’s explanation of the current financial crisis.

If you have a weakness for adorable black kittens… Beware. They need homes!

My kitties are more likely to knock the pictures askew… And they would totally kill me in my sleep if I did this to them.

This cat tail USB drive is kind of scary looking, isn’t it? And also? So wrong.

Who knew there were people out there who could certify a place as elf-free (or not)?

I definitely recommend Lynn Viehl’s hysterical post about a 911 hotline for writers and readers.

Dear Author has a nice point-by-point comparison of the Kindle and Sony ebook readers.

Do you ever lie about your reading habits and upscale them somewhat? You aren’t alone.

Reading Update
Things the Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett. This somewhat stream-of-consciousness autobiography from EELS frontman Mark Oliver Everett (more commonly known as “E” or “Mr. E”) was surprisingly readable and moving. Listening to the EELS while reading the book definitely enhanced my experience – there’s something eerie and very right about reading what inspired a particular song and having that song come on. The book’s title is from one of my favorite EELS songs:

I don’t leave the house much
I don’t like being around people
Makes me nervous and weird
I don’t like going to shows, either
It’s better for me to stay home
Some might think it means I hate people
But that’s not quite right

Divine Fantasy by Melanie Jackson. The latest installment in Jackson’s Divine… series features an immortal, lycanthropic Ambrose Bierce. The first book (Divine Fire) was pretty good, but at this point I’m mostly reading these out of a certain sick fascination. (Of course, if you are fond of books written in an eighteenth-century style, you might appreciate these much more than do I.)
Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis. Nicely done contemporary romance set in the Sierra Nevadas at Wilder Adventures and Expeditions. Based on the setup, Shalvis has a few more Wilder Adventures romances planned and I’ll definitely read them. However, there was one thing that kept bothering me throughout this book – the attraction between the two characters was such that every time Cam looked at Katie, her glasses fogged up. As someone who wears glasses, I found that to be silly and unrealistic.
Superb and Sexy (Sky High Air, Book 3) by Jill Shalvis. Haven’t read Book 2 yet. Oh well. This was an ok contemporary romance that finished off the Sky High Air trilogy.
White Heat (The Men of T-FLAC, Book 11) by Cherry Adair. And now I’m all caught up with the men of T-FLAC.
Just Another Judgement Day (Nightside, Book 9) by Simon R. Green. John Taylor is back. What else is there to say? There are so many great lines in this book, such as this one: “Sharon led us down the hallway and ushered us into a nice comfortable parlour, which contained everything you’d expect to find in a cosy vicarage parlour, but rarely do outside of a Jane Austen novel.”
Tiger Eye (Dirk & Steele, Book 1) by Marjorie M. Liu. Nicely done paranormal romance about a woman with a telekinetic connection to/control of metal and a tiger shapeshifter cursed by an evil magician 2000 years ago.
Unfallen Dead (Connor Grey, Book 3) by Mark del Franco. If you enjoy Harry Dresden, I recommend giving this series a try. Connor Grey’s a druid and private investigator in Boston, 100 years after Faery converged with our world. These are involving and enjoyable reads. And I’m sure I’d say that even if Nathan Kamp wasn’t on the covers (sadly, covered with clothing).
Men of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong. There are three main segments to this book – the first is the story of how Jeremy came to be, the second is a lengthy look at Clay’s backstory (from being bitten almost to meeting Elena), and the last is a more current look at a slice of Jeremy’s life. A must-read if you follow Armstrong’s Otherworld series.
Pleasure Unbound and Desire Unchained (Demonica, Books 1-2) by Larissa Ione. Image ER run by demons, with a few werewolves and vampires thrown in for good measure, inspired heavily by J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood. Very good paranormal romance, but be warned – it’s also extremely steamy.


Fun and easy to do:

Soup is good food

This is one of my favorite soups. Sadly, I don’t make it very often anymore because of how much lactose is contains – soymilk just doesn’t taste right to me for this!

White Bean Chowder
1 pound white beans (small whites, navies, or great northern)
1 c chopped onion
1 1/2 c chopped celery
1 – 2 c sliced mushrooms
garlic to taste
1/4 c butter
3 T cornstarch or arrowroot
1/8 t pepper
3+ c milk
16 oz frozen whole-kernel corn
16 oz frozen green beans
14 – 16 oz can chopped tomatoes
1/4+ lb sharp cheddar
water

Rinse, sort, and soak beans overnight. Drain. In large pot, cook beans in 6 to 8 cups of water until tender (about 2 or 2 1/2 hours). Meanwhile, cook onion, celery, mushrooms, and garlic briefly in butter in a saucepan. Blend in cornstarch/arrowroot and pepper. Stir in milk and heat mixture until hot but not boiling. Put cooked beans in a strainer and rinse briefly in hot water, then put back into large pot. Add milk mixture to large pot, along with remaining ingredients. You might want to add water or additional milk until the soup has an amount of liquid you find appealing. Heat to serving temperature. For extra zip, add a few dashes of bottled hot sauce or a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.


May you have a relaxing weekend, filled with soup or books or naps or knitting or whatever your heart desires!

*purrrrrrrr……zzzzzzzzz….* -Chaos

*….zzzzzzzzzzz….* -Mayhem

Hmm. The dishes in the sink are suspiciously black and furry…

Author Barbara Bretton (who wrote the wonderful Casting Spells) is giving away six skeins of alpaca silk to a lucky commenter. Leave your comments before the evening of March 6.

Bridget’s giving away a copy of Julia & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell. Send her an email or leave a comment by March 7 for your chance to win. (I read it a while ago and enjoyed it, although some of the cooking scenes left me queasy.)

There’s still time to contribute to Animal Rescue of Fresno (ARF) and participate in Concateknit’s contest! For every $5 you contribute, you get an entry in the contest, which ends March 7.

If you’re interested in the chance to win an iPod Touch and are willing to work for it a little, check out the latest contest over at Bitten By Books. Contest runs through March 20.


OMG! A real panther cub! The cute! The cute! It burns!

Eeep! Chaos?!

Dear Author has a list of recommended romance releases for March.

Check out the Random House Suvudu Free First Book Library, where you can download the first title of a series for free. Current titles are Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb, Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, Settling Accounts: Return Engagement by Harry Turtledove, His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik, and Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt. I just downloaded Blood Engines myself.

While being able to find more information on every little thing that wanders through your head is a nifty aspect of the interwebz, keeping a tangents log can help you stay more focused.

IKEA Planner is a nifty little free Windows application that lets you play around with how different IKEA stuff will fit into your space.

If you’re like me, glasses shopping is fraught with peril (since you can’t actually see what you look like in various frames). The FrameFinder seems like it could be very handy for us.

Like to learn things but don’t really want to bother with credits and all that? Check out the list of 200 free online classes put together by the Online Education Database.

Eeek! If a kitteh like this shows up at your house, you should probably run away really really fast (taking your hard drives with you, of course).


“If I pretend I can’t see you, Mom, you can’t tell me I shouldn’t be in the sink. Besides, all panthers hang out in sinks. Really.” -Mayhem

Sunset, sunset

Hmm. Since I didn’t prepare you for two consecutive days of knitting, I’m a little worried about the manifold ramifications thereof.

Everyone still with me? Good. I started the Meilenweit Sunset socks in mid-February and finished them last night. I like them. A lot. That may or may not be related to the near-perfect level of matchy-matchy I achieved. Or it could be the purple.

There was a shocking level of feline interest in the completed socks.

“Man, dinner sure was tasty. But then… it always is. Too bad there’s never enough of it.” -Chaos

“Nothing like a little after dinner bath. A clean panther girl is a perfectly wonderful panther girl!” -Mayhem

“Hmm… stripeyish socks have appeared on the floor. This has the look of a panther girl trap! I must be wary.” -Mayhem