Life in Minnesota has been very cold and snowy this week. Enough said.
Zonda’s celebrating her third blogiversary with a contest! Leave a comment by December 23 for your chance to win a cool calendar or lovely yarn.
If you have a little time and effort to put into it, you could have the chance to win a Sony ebook reader.
To find more reading-related contests, Literary Escapism and Vampire Wire always seem to have links to a few.
Worth reading: Lilith Saintcrow’s column about urban fantasy, including how the first (but not the recent) Anita Blake novels kickstarted the genre. Not sure which is more over-the-top – the column or the comments!
Huh. Socket antlers. I’d guess they’re not recommended for homes with children or pets…
Look! A holiday greeting from the cats! I never thought of Chaos and Mayhem as deprived… until I saw this. More on the thumb issue… Oh, that reminds me. Recently, I was cutting kitty claws and was grousing to myself (as usual) about how hard it is to trim May’s dewclaws. Why the heck is it so easy to trim Chaos’ dewclaws and so hard to trim May’s?! And then I realized… Chaos has protothumbs, not dewclaws. O noes! (Looking for a good dewclaws link led me to this Wiki article…)
Reading Update
Sex, Lies and Online Dating by Rachel Gibson. More nicely done romantic suspense! And even better, it looks like Gibson has other books related to this one.
Shadows on the Soul and Hungers of the Heart (The Guardians of the Night, Books 3-4) by Jenna Black. Ok, I’m obviously totally sucked into this series, no matter what misgivings I have. That doesn’t mean I can overlook the massive plot weaknesses/gaps in the fourth book. Sheesh.
The Devil Inside (Morgan Kingsley, Exorcist, Book 1) by Jenna Black. This is some pretty extreme stuff. Not sure I want to read more of the series, as this book left me feeling vaguely queasy.
The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance. With stories by Lilith Saintcrow, Keri Arthur, and more, this was by far the best short story collection I’ve read in a very long time.
Uncommon Grounds by Sandra Balzo. An enjoyable cozy mystery about Maggy Thorsen, PR executive turned coffeeshop owner. This mystery is set in “Brookhills,” Wisconsin, which is apparently based on the real Brookfield, Wisconsin. I’m the next person on the list at the library for the second book in this series.
“Ends? What ends? I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mom. Were you installing some socket antlers for my further chewing pleasure?” -Mayhem
The antlers look like they might be a good back scratcher for the pets!
Pepper would chew on the antlers…
Mayhem is getting so demanding!
I’d have a perpetual series of bruises and scrapes on my legs from brushing up against those spiky protrusions.
That LOLCat cracked me up when I first saw it! Hee hee. That has happened here… Just not with mistletoe.
Careful what you feed that boy: you wouldn’t want those proto-thumbs to spontaneously evolve into real thumbs!
Chris- Kitten-Chow has been too busy pretending to be a flying squirrel at the Christmas tree.
Why do I bother, I ask myself.
I miss the cold and snow! Here it’s just sleety and yucky.
Go check out Rose-Kim knits today. The you tube video is a hoot. Are you an “Ooo” or an “aaaah” person? It’ll make sense once you watch the video.
Must have deer antlers on my outlets. Must have. Wait. Probably not.
Socket antlers could be dangerous for people when there’s nothing plugged in…
Those antlers are too funny. I wonder if they have them at Fleet Farm in the hunting section?
I think I definitely need to add the first and last books to my list…
The antlers put me into hysterics. Larry thought they were very clever.
I love the “Cat House”. I hope never to be insane enough to remodel my house for cats, but I really do like what they did, and all of the fun, bright colors.
Oh, Chris. You’re just baiting me with opening sentences like that one.
Proto-thumbs? Wow.
Hmmm… I’m trying to envision a cozy mystery set in Brookfield. Very odd, as it’s strip-mall central.
lol, i so need to order a couple of those socket antlers…they don’t look like they’re actually for sale yet though. Lol, i can so picture the cat rubbing against them!
Sadly antlers would not last at my house either. Although I think Benny would rub his face on them more than chew…
Speaking of cats – Jack would kill for a set of thumbs; we tend to call his front feet hands because that is how he usually tries to use them 😉
haven’t had a good snow here yet, i can’t wait.
I misread socket antlers as “sock antlers”. The picture wasn’t nearly as good as my imagination on that one…
OMG – I really, really, REALLY want some of those socket antlers. Maybe at our cabin….
I’ve seen that Cat House on TV; it is really wild.
Last night at the grocery store, they had an eight pound beef femur with bits of cartilage and meat stuck on. Only $0.99/lb! I thought it might make a nice Christmas gift for Mayhem, as she seems so fond of chewing. 😉
Those socket antlers are accidents waiting to happen…
I’ve seent that cathouse on TV, it’s fabulous.
I’m not sure encouraging the kitties to play with the light sockets is a good idea but those antler sockets are wild.
I like those antler sockets but the ferrets would probably try to steal the antlers and Katie would be batting at them. You could probably make a deal with Mayhem to trade yarn chewing for antler chewing. 😉
Hehe 🙂 Socket antlers – now I know what to get pao for Christmas!!
Go protothumbs! Just a step away from having fully opposable digits…
thanks for the new book titles.
I am so ready for another good Saintcrow!
How did you like Uncommon Grounds? Is it similar to Cleo Coyle’s coffeeshop series in NYC?