• New releases: Tor.com (horror/genre benders, fantasy, scifi), Book Riot (mystery/thriller/true crime)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• Gifts for readers and literary home office gifts.
• Some thoughts on living in Gotham.
• On the art of Frank Frazetta, with particular emphasis on LotR.
• “What Tumblr is like, from someone who never left“.
• Sunita on the Twitter mess and switching to Mastodon.
• A poem: “Voting as Fire Extinguisher”.
• Sweet elephant behaviors.
• Knit a “breasted dodecahedron”. (NSFW, probably)
• Double-knit some cat-themed scarves.
• Low-Cost Cosplay Guy.
• Flamingo art.
• Very cool dragon sculpture.
• And a cute little dragon comic.
• Easy mini-pumpkin pies.
• Pumpkin streusel muffins. (via The Kitchn)
• Copycat oatmeal fudge bars. (via The Kitchn)
• Lovely house in Berkeley.
• I guess you’d get a lot of exercise living in this one.
• Floating home with an underwater level.
• Wisconsin “hobbit mansion”.
• You could live in a former Coca-Cola distribution center.
• I think the remodeling theme must’ve been BRIGHT and INEXPLICABLE.
• The decorating theme here must’ve been PRETENTIOUS and CONFUSING.
• I love the little tower.
• Sort of a sad little castle house.
• Much nicer little castle house.
• Minnesota fixer-upper.
• I guess I really don’t like green cabinets.
• Why would you build a spiral staircase as part of the kitchen island?!
• Irregularity is not a desired feature for stairs.
• Huh.
• WHY.
• Ewww – candy corn grilled cheese.

Polly would like her chin scratched more, please!

Lights on, nobody home in Pollyland!

Harry very focused on sharpening his claws on the scratcher.

• New releases: AAR (romance), Smart Bitches (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• An excellent list of some of the very best ficlets on tumblr.
• And here’s a comic for the god of Arepo ficlet.
• “Indie bookstores you can shop at from anywhere” (includes my neighborhood shop Magers & Quinn).
• xkcd/What If? on star ownership.
• Musk ox cam.
• Wolves!
• Consumer Reports on the best hot chocolate.
• Excellent rant about the “s’mores” on The Great British Bake-Off.
• And then I learned that Minnesota is one of the four states that includes supernatural activity in real estate disclosures.
• I wouldn’t have guessed these dragon benches (and more) were carved with chainsaws.
• A fairy-tale cottage.
• A 1000-year old castle.
• A much newer “castle” in Arizona.
• Definitely very curved.
• Converted water tower.
• Genius train station design.
• I believe the pink bathroom is exactly what the bathroom in my condo used to look like (based on the pink showing through the tub paint).
• I might’ve painted the second kitchen before listing, because it’s a bit of a shock after all the black and white.
• Nice, but I still think outdoor pools in the desert are just wrong.
• Apparently this house was used for Stranger Things.
• Rustic and mid-century modern don’t seem like they should co-exist in the same house.
• I didn’t realize there was stone wallpaper.
• Partially finished eco home.
• Dinosaur park-themed home.
• That’s too many windows. Put some back.
• Very 80s-themed.
• Three kitchens is too many kitchens.
• YIKES.
• Very bad carpet choice for stairs.
• Optical illusions are never a good choice for stairs.
• Kind of clever, but also…
• Bone-themed stairs.
• They must really hate railings.
• Hot chocolate-scented sweater from Swiss Miss.
• Pillow from Jet-Puffed Marshmallows.
• 😮

A rare appearance by the Lady Miss Princess Mayhem!

Harry looking very dapper in his Halloween bow tie.

Serious Polly is a serious cat loaf indeed.

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Ficlet about glowing.
• A little something from Neil Gaiman for Halloween.
• Knit some socks inspired by Where the Wild Things Are.
• Updated relative speeds of objects in our solar system video.
• 31 butternut squash recipes.
• The woman behind the “Waite” tarot deck.
• Watch a beaver in a rehab facility build a “dam”. (The last five seconds! I had no idea beavers moved like that.)
• Drone art in the sky.
• Black kitty!
• Plant drama.
• “It was all downhill after the Cuecat“.
• “The world’s fastest shoes“.
• “For decades, no one knew about Congress’ secret apocalypse bunker in the mountains of West Virginia“.
• Dragon jewelry dish.
• Dragon trinket boxes.
• Decorated for Halloween.
• Fairy tale house (with crazy stairs).
• Inspired by Star Wars.
• Cozy and charming.
• I like some of the decor a lot.
• The columns don’t seem to fit.
• A “barndominium”.
• Nope.
• This looks AI-generated, but apparently it’s real.
• Too many tarps.
• A weird one.
• I don’t think you should need a topographic map of your home’s interior.
• My favorite decorating style is the opposite of whatever this is.
• What the heck is up with the tile in this place?
• Ignoring the race car, I want to know why it doesn’t look like people can fit their legs under that table with those chairs.
• But why???
• Huh.
• Confusing.

Harry watching leaves blowing around outside.

Polly getting comfortable.

Siblings keeping an eyes on goings on in the neighborhood.

• Happy October!
• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Good LotR meta.
• A lovely short comic about a summer visit to Ireland.
• You will not guess where this entertaining story ends up.
• Learn a cursed fact about lemurs.
• The 52-hertz whale has a friend!
• Learn about Richard Hunt, Muppets puppeteer.
• Learn about the home that was part of the Houston Astrodome.
• The Socktober post from Smart Bitches has links to patterns, yarns, and more.
• A $59 million penthouse at the top of the NYC Woolworth building.
• The house is lovely, but I got stuck on the pool table on the landing, picturing balls hurtling over the edge.
• Not boring inside.
• Just blends right into the landscape.
• Is that a decagon-shaped house?
• Castlish house right here in Minnesota.
• Actually has some castlish features inside.
• Not a castle.
• Corrugated metal mansion.
• Gothic on the outside, kind of bland on the inside.
• Converted school that was really too big to be converted into a single-family home.
• “I feel like I’ve been catfished by Zillow.“
• House shaped like a guitar.
• Trailer compound.
• I guess no one carries groceries in from the garage through THAT door.
• DIY stair failure.
• Are we sure that’s not a ladder?
• Why would you do this?
• YIKES.
• Experience what it would be like to be flushed down a toilet.

Lights on, nobody home in Harryland!

Polly’s hunkered down under the blanket, staying cozy.

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Very cool book box with mini books on little bookshelves.
• Photos taken during the construction of the Eiffel Tower.
• Learn about Pigeonniers.
• Learn about the 1950s Flying Saucer Conventions.
• Learn about The Lost Sea in Tennessee.
• There’s going to be a documentary about the Mars Opportunity rover called Good Night Oppy.
• “A Day in the Life of Anubis”.
• Knit some “dragon-inspired” legwarmers.
• One-bowl chocolate-chip pumpkin bread.
• Disney horse designs, rated.
• A story about eating “Confetti Glitter Fruity Cereal Flavored Fruit Spread”.
• A story about making wine from marshmallow Peeps.
• A very New Mexico dome home.
• A converted historic bank.
• A castle house in Minnesota!
• Very modern.
• An Italian villa in… Arkansas?
• “A study in ostentation“.
• An excess of antlers.
• Definitely peculiar.
• “A contemporary hobbit house“.
• Lots of blue.
• The purple kitchen is more subtle than I expected.
• A house with 118 rooms.
• A rental for $150,000/month?!
• Whoa. The renovated interior is definitely a surprise.
• Converted barn and silos.
• If you really like killer whales.
• Comes with a giant chess board.
• WTH.
• Absolutely “no” to these light fixtures!
• How do you keep from getting scraped up getting in and out of those?!
• Doors should never exit onto stairs.
• YIKES.
• :facepalm:
• Seems more dangerous than texting.
• Eggo Nog Sippin’ Cream liqueur.
• From a “worst possible volume sliders” competition.

Another photo of Harry and Polly on my lap.

Polly cannot believe!

One of the most unflattering photos of Harry I’ve ever taken! 😀

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), AAR (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches. And more!
• Linkity from BookWyrmKnits.
• Some great bookish quotes compiled by BookWyrmKnits.
• Learn about “the exocentric verb-noun compound agent noun”, which makes for far more interesting reading than you’d suspect.
• Some more good literary analysis of LotR.
• A good ficlet that I can’t easily describe.
• “Our town’s libraries“.
• A book of official knitting patterns from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood comes out in a month.
• A squirrel that has multicolored fur, and one of the colors is blue?!
• Hoarding insanity: Collyers’ Mansion.
• Giant ‘Cheetos’ statue.
• NASA’s “Galaxy of Horrors” posters.
• “Every song in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, ranked“.
• The strange fame of a store mannequin in the 1930s.
• “A famous Cornell University marketing professor’s fake-research empire crumbl[ed] as soon as anyone actually looked at his methods“.
• Cute “Halloween” dragon.
• Doesn’t really give me a castle house vibe.
• This one doesn’t, either – it’s more of a British summer estate sort of thing.
• Castle bedroom.
• Lovely cottage.
• Vintage round house.
• The outside is more over-the-top than the inside.
• Absolutely one-of-a-kind.
• Does it come with the pipe organ?
• For LEGO-lovers only.
• “Flintstones'” house.
• A “converted” doctor’s office. Conversion FAIL.
• Definitely looks like a bordello.
• Decisions were made.
• Interesting way to market the house, but the added people make it look small.
• Yikes.
• Ankle breaker.
• So dangerous.
• Stairs should not be made out of drywall.
• Must have good balance to live there.
• You’d need perfect balance and strong nerves to use that bike ramp.
• A very good question.
• Is a one-vertical-blind-wide window really worth it?
• That’s quite a commitment to Halloween decorating.
• So’s this.

Harry’s usual look of skepticism.

Polly on the spiffy new kitty mixtape scratcher, with bonus Harry’s tail.

Harry and Polly drowsing on my lap.

• New releases: Tor.com (horror & genre-benders)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Book bans banned.
• Some cute new bookish stickers.
• Some very odd old promo pictures for Firefly.
• Learn a little bit about waxwings.
• “15 of NASA’s coolest inventions that regular people use“.
• It looks magical.
• “Home Depot is selling a giant dragon that breathes fog” for your Halloween (and beyond!) lawn decorating needs.
• Knit yourself some antibodies.
• A very worthwhile xkcd.
• The ultra rich seriously exist on another plane… of ridiculousness.
• Yay, Minneapolis! One I quite like.
• Just say no to having dead trees in your house.
• Decisions were made.
• Comes with a surprise in the attic.
• Has a special bathroom for your muddy dog.
• NOT a hobbit house.
• Ridiculous.
• RIDICULOUS.
• Ridiculous in a completely different direction.
• I…actually like the pink bathroom tile.
• Purple house!
• Ugh, that’s too much money for something that needs so much work.
• More reasonable for a castle that needs work.
• That is an awful lot of money for 290 square feet.
• They really don’t look very sturdy.
• It’s going to be hard to get groceries up that ladder.
• YIKES.
• No one can possibly fit down those.
• Creepy, and for the eyes, they didn’t even try.
• “Fiesta Strength” toilet paper.

Polly looking on whilst Harry tries to remove his IV bandage from his overnight stay at the emergency vet. Turns out he’d decided to supplement his diet with cardboard. Fortunately, the vet was able to resolve the issue without surgery. WHEW.

Harry’s leg after the bandage was removed (by me).

Harry, having sat on Polly. Love the expression on Polly’s face!

Polly grooming!

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• “Who was Ursula K Le Guin?“
• “Travel Middle-Earth” posters.
• Discworld embroidered jacket.
• You’re a [not-so-super] hero contemplating turning into a villain…
• An epic!
• “The Geico STD story is the new McDonald’s hot coffee story“.
• “The White House Press Room is on top of an old indoor pool“.
• Gaze at a snow leopard’s tongue.
• “Transatlantic car rental” from the xkcd guy.
• “Photographs from routine zoo escape drills“.
• La Machine Company.
• Tabletop fire pit.
• Cargo pants made from Chipotle napkins.
• Sleeve knitting gothic.
• Funky.
• Kitschy.
• Gigantic.
• Interesting.
• Cool, until you look at the floor plan and realize how much of the space isn’t usable in winter.
• Former train depot, plus caboose.
• If you’ve created a tiny home complex to serve as your home, is it still a tiny home?
• Definitely needs work – get that carpet out of there.
• Complete with sliding fireplace!
• You could own a haunted hotel and bar.
• If you need your own personal bowling alley…
• Has potential, but I’d be scared of what they might do to the kitchen.
• Colorful yet deadly stairs.
• Yikes.
• NO.
• FAIL.
• Bates Motel gingerbread house…
• “Inflatable vampire teeth bed“.
• “The career of a real life garden gnome“.
• Important information from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

Polly’s Flehmen Response in action.

Harry scent marking the window frame.