• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• “Incomplete list of great things the PJ LOTR films added that weren’t in the books“.
• Stephen Colbert is part of the team working to bring the Chronicles of Amber to the screen.
• Ficlet set after the Robot Apocalypse.
• “Why isn’t every year the warmest year on record?“
• The many types of erasers.
• “Researchers breed naturally flame-resistant cotton“.
• Nonasuch with an entertaining look at the Miss Universe national costumes. Plus a look at past Miss USA national costumes.
• Repurposed scenery painting rooms.
• Another lovely mansion that’s a 5-10 minute walk from my wee condo.
• Fairy tale cottage.
• Unusual geodesic dome.
• Inside the “Invisible House”.
• The “Circular Sun House” by Frank Lloyd Wright.
• Another one from Frank Lloyd Wright.
• An unusual cottage.
• Decorating decisions were definitely made here.
• Not a fan of the red ceilings.
• Very unusual condo.
• Apparently I am in the minority for thinking it’s not a treehouse unless the involved tree is supporting the structure.
• I would be more concerned about having heat registers on the floor, but the house not having heat…
• Another house just for car enthusiasts.
• Must love bricks.
• Very clever fire escape.
• What’s the weight rating of that IKEA cabinet? I hope that was considered before including it in the ladder path.
• Never choose artistry over function re stairs.
• Here’s hoping those kids aren’t clumsy.
• Shower on the landing.
• This skeleton bike can’t possibly be functional… can it?
• Super creepy dollhouse. WARNING: Involves taxidermy.

Mayhem is THRILLED (not) to be sharing the sofa with Harry.

The Cute! It burns!!!! (Polly is as sweet as she looks.)

Harry wondering what the heck I want NOW.

• New releases: Tor.com (fantasy, scifi, horror & genre benders), Book Riot (nonfiction)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• “In search of new reading rituals“.
• “For Christmas this year my wife got me a 90-second Barnes and Noble shopping spree.“
• “A study of Discworld“.
• The difference between war in LotR and GoT.
• Tolkien-themed cakes.
• A touching superhero ficlet.
• A ficlet about saving the world.
• “A personal apology to young Americans for failing to stop Ronald Reagan” (I wasn’t quite old enough to vote against him, alas.)
• “Why we actually need more mindless activities“.
• Learn a cursed fact about vultures.
• The secret of Roman concrete revealed.
• Gargoyles.
• Gingerbread International Space Station.
• A McDonald’s meal painted in the stye of the old masters.
• If you need a moment of coziness…
• “Use your knitting superpowers to turn Barbie into a mermaid.”
• Dr Pepper-flavored Peeps.
• “lol, how could the peas be upside d—…“
• Friends-inspired candle.
• Cinnamon-sugar Nutella stuffed French toast.
• Fairy tale cabin.
• Fairy tale compound.
• Faux finish hell.
• Snaring stairs.
• Stairs with climbing grips to help you out.
• Why do people make countertop stairs!?

Yet another shot of Mayhem looking every bit the Panther Princess.

Polly on my lap, Harry (suspiciously) next to my legs.

Polly side eye.

• New releases: Tor.com (YA SFF), Smart Bitches (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• On Theoden’s redemption arc in LotR.
• On special effects in LotR.
• On book Eowyn.
• A single paragraph on LotR that packs a lot of punch.
• A webcomic on trying to appease a volcano god.
• Unusual gryphons.
• “New covid variant just dropped, happy new year everyone“.
• “The coolest space images of 2022” and “The best spaceflight images of 2022“.
• Which US states legally consider Pluto a planet?
• Learn about mules.
• Pallas cat and kittens.
• Stop-motion video from the LEGO Group.
• A McDonald’s with a glass floor so you can view a Roman road plus skeletons.
• I can’t think of a good reason for this map.
• Bike desk that can charge devices with your biking power.
• “Which is the most ignored generation?“
• Calvin & Hobbes on resolutions.
• Castlesque house.
• And another.
• Not what I expected a house in the Bronx to look like!
• This feels more like an attraction than a house you’d actually live in.
• Very colorful.
• Decorating decisions were made.
• More decorating decisions were made.
• Extreme Christmas house.
• Too many statues house.
• Cleaning nightmare of a house.
• Only if you like the 1970s and religious murals.
• 1970s time capsule house.
• Safari house.
• House for car modification enthusiasts.
• Has a purple clawfoot bathtub.
• Colorful stairs.
• Artistically confusing stairs.
• Kitchen counters should never be part of the stairs.
• Death stairs.
• More death stairs.
• Stairs fit only for mountain goats.
• Terrifying bathroom floor.

It has been ridiculously snowy here in Minneapolis this week. I took the picture below on the morning of January 4th and it kept on snowing all day, into Thursday morning. We got around 15 inches/38 cm. UGH.

I knitted two pairs of socks for Xmas gifts and they were well received.

These were knitted from Meilenweit.

These were knitted from some ancient Regia.

Mayhem is still a lovely panther princess at 16.5 years old!

Staticky Polly!

Harry keeping warm and cozy.

My wish for all of you at the end of the year. Skipping linkity next week, so I’ll see you all in 2023!

• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Learn more about Agatha Christie.
• Some good LotR meta.
• “Life During Interesting Times” – a zine that made me think.
• Illustrated good news from 2022.
• Dramatic cats!
• The Barbie trailer gets the Kubrick estate’s approval. A comparison of the Barbie trailer and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Make Lego-esque waffles.
• A most unusual art installation.
• 😮
• FANCY.
• Too much white. The pink bathroom is actually a relief.
• The opposite of the above.
• As is this.
• Quirky.
• I haven’t seen a kitchen like this before.
• Made from a fancy trailer.
• Talk about cookie cutter houses.
• Has its own sacrificial slab.
• This guy is REALLY into motorsports.
• Higgeldypiggeldy house.
• You enter through the window.
• “With special shelving for the mountain goats“.
• WTH.
• “You don’t need to measure, just eyeball it…“
• This is in a hotel, apparently.
• Falling through the glass would be very bad.
• Another wheelchair ramp fail.
• And a slide fail.
• That extrovert is sucking out all of the introvert’s energy!

Harry pestering Mayhem, to her great annoyance.

Polly and Harry on my lap.

What the heck, Polly?! Are you ok?! (She seems fine after her apparent existential crisis.)

Harry scent-marking the window frame.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• I don’t think I realized that Owl and Rabbit were REAL and everyone else was a stuffed animal in the Hundred-Acre Woods.
• “Merry Christmas, Tolkien Fandom“.
• More humans are weird. And even more!
• Hansel and Gretel with a twist.
• A scissor wizard and a paper wizard…
• Why we still wear masks.
• Free COVID tests are available for an apparently limited time in the US.
• “Gingerbread house but your mom’s an architect“.
• “11 easy WFH lunches you can make between meetings“.
• No-bake triple chocolate mousse cake.
• Mississippi mud pie.
• Some thoughts about fake fireplaces.
• Dominoesque.
• Dragon!
• Rustic with turret in Minnesota.
• Castle house!
• If you’d like to own a Coliseum…
• Not my style, but lovely.
• So’s this.
• Has a cantina basement.
• Has a full-on club basement.
• Flying saucer house.
• Lofted… bathtub?
• Why would you embed a piano in a wall?
• Clutch that railing tightly.
• Just yikes.
• Well, that’s bizarre.
• Just some dark bath humor.
• “Shrimper Santa and his flying albino alligators“.

Polly sitting like a people…

Deep thoughts with Harry.

• New releases: Tor.com (horror & genre-benders, YA SFF, scifi, fantasy)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• “Everything counts as reading“.
• “You could spend a night in Hobbiton“.
• A short film about an Amazon delivery drone having an existential crisis.
• xkcd’s What If? on comet ice.
• “Could You Really Not Just Put This in an Email?“.
• Make an Xmas tree with a cave inside.
• Learn about the mata mata turtle.
• Bald eagle completely failing to catch a crab.
• Megafauna skulls.
• Trying to decide if my KitchenAid mixer needs a unicorn horn, or if the purple racing stripes it has are enough.
• That is indeed a lot of crochet.
• “Wellness brand INTIMINA releases uterus-shaped cereal that turns your milk red“.
• Blueberry & Syrup Mini Pancake cereal from IHOP.
• Buttered rum eggnog cake.
• Lazy chicken pot pie made from a can of soup and frozen packaged pastry dough.
• Pop-Tarts “Gingerbread Lodge”.
• The Gingerbread House Estate.
• Nice floating house.
• Over-the-top Minnesota mansion.
• It has that Victorian feel of not being able to move without knocking things over.
• Has a hot pink and green kitchen.
• Also very colorful.
• “A most unique home“.
• Just say no to urinals in the kitchen.
• I have a question about the “emergency toilet”.
• Remember the bone stairs? Here’s the whole bone house.
• If you’re looking for your brutalist dream home…
• Not the place to stay if you sleepwalk.
• You’ll only forget to wear your shoes once on these stairs.
• I would definitely injure myself on that bridge.

Polly is so chatty and excited!

Harry napping on the cat tree.

Harry and Mayhem on my lap. Harry desperately wants Mayhem to lick his head.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), AAR (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches. And more!
• If you’d like to get a daily dose of The Christmas Carol in December…
• A ficlet about a stone that “corrupts all who wield it”.
• Another twist on the “humans are aliens” thing.
• Archive.org has lots of sci fi, horror, and adventure pulps available.
• The Eiffel Tower is the tallest LEGO set ever.
• Dragon…fountain?
• On how great Bandcamp is.
• Liveblog of watching Good Night, Oppy.
• Some tidbits about gharials.
• Green bean casserole sparkling water?!
• Puking cat gravy boat.
• “Fiberglass Animal Shapes and Trademarks” graveyard.
• VERY memorable weather report.
• Brown butter cinnamon bun sandwich cookies.
• From Minnesota: Nice Craftsman, Very Large Tudor, stone mansion, “modern rustic treehouse feel”.
• Nice.
• Very elegant.
• Hmm, stairs or slide, stairs or slide…
• Retro.
• So many details!
• Mushroom house.
• Desert dome home.
• Converted bottling company.
• This one looks like it’ll be a climate change victim in the not-too-distant future.
• If you’re tired of grey/beige homes…
• Another, but the inside doesn’t live up to the outside.
• The basement, wtf.
• Another mysterious basement.
• Offices for everyone!
• But what about the drop from that door?!
• Huh.
• 😮
• D’oh.
• Two sets of dubious stairs in one location.
• Were these installed upside down?
• No railing and not enough space to open the door.
• Maybe don’t go with the lowest bidder for stairs.
• Eep.
• Nope.

Everyone looks THRILLED, don’t they?!

Polly looking down at Harry.

Polly LEAPING over Harry as he stares out the window.

Since linkity-making time happens to be on my birthday, this will be brief. And next week, linkity-making time is on American Thanksgiving, so no linkity at all then. Take care and see you in a few weeks!

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Tor.com (YA SFF)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• “What do you think Sauron’s opinion of Elrond was?“
• On bald eagle nests.
• A concert pianist takes on “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
• “Timelapse of acorn growth into a small oak in 6 months“.
• Clippy on an ugly holiday sweater.
• Theater shenanigans.
• “Reasons to NOT want a pet dragon“.
• “There’s no punchline here.“
• The Washington State DNR on the Twitter debacle.
• Grimy flashback house.
• Huh.
• No one will ever notice…
• These stairs will kill you, but not in the way you might expect.
• Terrifying fire escape.

Looks like Harry’s waiting for the remote and a beer…

Polly and her very soft tummy.

Sleeping Mayhem curl.

• 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.