*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:

37 thoughts on “*insert annual whining about springing ahead for Daylight Savings*”

  1. Considering your mother’s taste in books, I’m not surprised one of you didn’t end up on the cover of Playgirl 😉 Hope the photos were tastefully done!

  2. Heehee…I’m still giddy about the BC Gluten-Free stuff!

    Those poor, poor hairless kitties. I wouldn’t live to put it on them, let alone photograph them!

  3. All of the shows TAL has done so far about the financial crisis (there’ve been 3 so far) are excellent and should be required listening for every single person on this planet. Go. Go NOW and listen. 🙂

  4. I saw Barbara Bretton’s cover art and immediately thought of you. Somehow I just knew that when I got here this morning, I’d find a linky. 🙂

  5. I am right with you on a big ol’ bag of hate for Daylight Savings Time. It was awful yesterday (when I finally remembered sometime around noon) and downright miserable this morning when we had to bumble around in the dark to get Munchkin off to school. My already confuzzled internal clock is going to be all sorts of messed up for the next week.

  6. DST bites. The USB drive is disturbingly realistic. I’d be afraid of my kitties yanking it out to play with… heck, my kids would beat them to it. I love the magazine cover links. Cheers!

  7. I Saw your comment on Dave’s blog and had to let you know, the world’s biggest new and used bookstore is Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Or. It’s a three-story square block building with annexes in outlying neighborhoods. Google them.

  8. I don’t feel the need to lie about what I read. I’ve actually had some people sneer at me for some of my reading and tell me that they never read “those”. My favored books being romance novels – historical, contemporary, futuristic, any and all of the above. I don’t feel the need to defend my choices; and I certainly don’t feel the need to tell these people the classics I have gone through. I am an English major, after all.

  9. I heard the TAL piece about the economic crisis on Friday. It was as usual really informative and put a new twist on all the same repetitive crap we’ve been hearing.

  10. I freaking HATE Daylight Savings time – and since I live in Indiana, where we didn’t have to change time twice a year until about 3 years ago – my HATE for it is even more so. Woke up this morning and the house was cold – forgot to change the time on the thermostat – aargh.
    Thanks for the links to things – these are my favorite kinds of posts – along with pics of the kitties

  11. Re: The kittie links. I used to have a cat named Ripley who’s favorite method of waking me in the morning was to stand on top of my dresser and bang the framed photo that hung above the dresser until I got up and stopped her. Many a time, she knocked it completely off the wall, and eventually the glass broke. No matter, as long as she got her breakfast on time!

    Cats in sweaters…one of my favorite memories of my cat Jack is the day I came home, walked into the kitchen, and was met by Jack, who was coming in from the living room wearing shorts and a tank top. My daughters had topped him off with some baby clothes. They have been dressing him for years. Generally, the boys just get dressed up for pictures, then are released. This past December, my daughters found doggie jackets in the dollar section at Target, and, of course, had to buy them. Red for Jack, Baby Blue for Bailey. They look fab. And…they hate the jackets. But the pictures are cute!

  12. Love the mag cover! I can imagine Chaos being blase over the whole thing, but I think May would be devastated to know that she really isn’t on massive building bill board.

  13. I try really hard not to overstate what I read on when I fill out those surveys, but I’ve started (and sadly not finished) so many books that I am sure that there are times when I list books that I got a 100 or 200 pages into.

    I don’t want to think about how many times I started Les Miserables only to get stuck sometime after Waterloo. If I had a newer iPod, I’d definitely be downloading the Kindle app for the iPod. It would be nice to do a little reading when my carrying capacity is severely compromised.

  14. Go Iceland! That is, bar none, the coolest thing I have ever heard.

    Oh, and if you did that to your cats, they would get off because the homicide would be justifiable. (But what would poor Chaos do without his hoomin?)

  15. I sort of wish there really was an author’s 911. I think it would be flooded with writers calling for cures for writers block and needing emergency plot devices!

  16. Those covers are fabulous, especially Miss “Furry and Fangy!” The cat tail USB is rather odd, but it was one of the comments that really caught my eye; he asked if device was produced by a country that had struggled for years to find a solution for the leftovers once they’d eaten the rest of the cat.

  17. Hee hee! Love the magazine cover. Very perfect.

    Also, I have started another LJ account, as I want to close down my old one. I’ve added you to it just so you can have access, though I don’t intend to post there. I’m having enough trouble keeping up with one blog, much less more than that.

    And . . . I LOVED Pleasure Unbound. The plot was enjoyable in addition to the rest of it, which is not always a given in paranormal romances.

  18. DST is more loathesome than words can describe. And why is it so freaking early this year?

    Those Mark Del Franco books – should they be read in order? Just checking.

    Publishing 911 – that was hilarious. I have a reading mantra. I did not know.

  19. Cat sweaters. nopleaseno! (Though I can see that a few do need them. I knew a Rex once that shivered, poor thing. Looked like the cat-equivalent of a Chihuahua.)

    Some good stuff today!

  20. I thought the Hipster Kitties were rather dapper. But yeah, I would come away with bloody stumps for areas if I tried that with Katie. The 911 hotline post for writers and readers is hysterical!

    I love the PlayGirl cover!

  21. I guess I’m in the minority for liking DST. It makes the days seem so much longer, and I live for as much sunlight as possible after the winter. That doesn’t mean adjusting to it is any easier the first week!

    I knew May was a cover girl!

  22. I started listening to This American Life’s Bad Bank episode. I had to stop though because I really want to pay attention, thus I must wait until the children are asleep or both at school. It’s really interesting so far.

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