---

---

Congrats to Melanie, who won the Summer Lovin’ m/m romance anthology by Clare London, Chrissy Munder, JL Merrow, Josephine Myles, & Lou Harper!

Congrats to Karen R, who won A Heart without Borders by Andrew Grey! A Heart without Borders is being released today by Dreamspinner Press.

Congrats to Avalie, who won Strong Enough (Family #2) by Cardeno C! Strong Enough is also being released today by Dreamspinner Press.

---

---

Randonymity

• Minnesota allows citizens to carry guns around, which leads to all sorts of places having “[name] bans guns on these premises” signs. Few are as good as this (click to embiggen):

• I have had “Trouble” by Cat Stevens, as sung by Elliott Smith, stuck in my head for weeks. Argh.

• No Misadventures post on Monday because it’s a holiday in the US! A much-needed holiday for me. 🙂

Contest(s)

• Jenre’s celebrating her 1000th post with a giveaway – prizes include a $10 ARe voucher and chocolate! Read the rules before you comment, because you have to answer a question. Closes 11:59 pm GMT, September 1.

• Joyfully Jay’s giving away an ebook copy of Strong Enough by Cardeno C. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, September 1.

Bookity

• New releases: Fiction Vixen (romance), Elisa Rolle (LGBT), Literary Escapism (UF/PNR), and Tor.com (UF, genre benders, scifi, fantasy).

• Book and publishing news from Dear Author.

• Josephine Myles on being plagiarized.

• Dear Author on the resurrection of the fan culture.

• On blogger burnout. (Thanks, Experiment BL26!) I struggle with it sometimes. I’ve been doing this for nearly eight years now…

• On genre snobbery. (Thanks, Experiment BL26!)

• If reviews are honest, you’ll find a mixture of good and bad. (Thanks, Experiment BL26!)

• What’s your bookshelf type? (Thanks, Experiment BL26!) I have a couple of IKEA BILLY bookcases and a couple of boring old bookcases that my dad made many, many, many years ago. I’m not sure what type that makes me. 🙂

Ebookity

• Ebook formating gone hilariously wrong. (via Tor.com)

• Fahrenheit 1600. (via The Digital Reader)

• Dear Author explains how to use the Goodreads plugin for Calibre.

Think, Do, Learn, Make

• Great post about growing up as a gay sports fan and how important the You Can Play project is. (via Puck Daddy)

• Apparently there’s a canyon bigger than the Grand Canyon hidden under the ice sheets of Greenland.

• Map of how far away the closest grocery store is for various parts of the US.

• Turn an IKEA pole system into a cat tree. (via hauspanther)

• “14 Swedish words that conflict with the IKEA products they name“.

• How to configure You Tube so it preloads entire videos instead of just bits. (I did this, and it is completely fabulous.)

• If you use Facebook, you need to read this post about changes to its Terms of Service.

• What sort of p0rn has your state been watching?

• Is Etsy on the decline? (via mental_floss)

• Don’t wash raw chicken before you cook it.

• “Test find cancer-causing chemicals in 98 personal care products“.

Cookity

• 10 recipes for plums.

• Zucchini breakfast tacos.

• Healthy sweet potato shepherd’s pie. (via The Kitchn)

• Easy chopped salad. (via CRAFT)

• Sriracha guacamole hot dogs. (via The Kitchn) (Actually, I’m more interested in the guac recipe than the hot dog part.)

• Zucchini bread cookies. (via The Kitchn)

• Starbucks pumpkin pound cake. (via Bron’s Pinterest)

• Chocolate coffee ice cream cake.

• Captain Palmer cocktail.

Gluten Free

• Banana strawberry crisp muffins.

• Six more blueberry recipes.

• Paleo doughnuts.

• Brown butter snickerdoodles.

• Grain-free banana bread.

• Tomato tart with savory pie crust.

Cool

• Where Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues meet in Minneapolis, then and now. (This is part of my route to and from work!)

• LEGO video version of the Roomba-riding cat. (via I Can Has Cheezburger?)

• The second cat video film festival was Wednesday night at the Minnesota State Fair and over 10,000 people attended.

Cool or Wha…?

• Unicorns farting rainbows socks.

• The State of Illinois website has a Klingon language option.

• The best and worst Star Wars merchandise. (via zarathuse)

Wha…?

• Deep-fried Nutella.

• Straight-jacketed wine.

• USB-powered BB sniper rifle. (Somebody’s going to lose an eye!)

• Iron Throne made from computer keyboards.

• Taxidermied animals that look like Harry Potter characters. (via The Mary Sue)

• Sculptured bananas.

LOL

• On google autocomplete. (Hover your cursor for additional text.)

• Blodeuedd should approve, since there’s a head on this model! 🙂

• As Jeanne pointed out, this is probably similar to what May would look like if she needed a bath…

• Chaos wouldn’t fit and May doesn’t care enough about food to bother.

• Chaos would really like to look like that guy on the left.

Teh Cute

• Baby red pandas! Baby snow leopard! Tiger and babies! Ocelot and baby! Hummingbird!

Reading Update
New Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual by Reader’s Digest. This book isn’t very helpful for those of us who are completely unhandy and unfamiliar with the basics – I think caulking got a couple sentences at most. I’ve had far better luck getting the sort of detailed info I need from googling. (Apparently painters tape is the secret to professional looking caulking – I’m glad I found that tip, or I’d probably be sitting in my disastrously caulked tub in tears right now.)
A Fine and Private Place by Peter S Beagle. Ok story about a man who’s lived in a graveyard in the Bronx for the past 20 years, keeping newly arrived ghosts company and eating food brought to him by a talking raven. It was also a story about the lies we tell ourselves and how hard it can be to face the truth. I felt it suffered from head hopping in the first half (probably due to some sort of omniscient narration, which I never do well with). At times it all seemed rather overwrought – but was that simply a product of being written in 1960? Anyway, since it took me over a month to get through, obviously I didn’t find it a particularly compelling read.

---

“I like this rug a lot. Jeanne knit it for us! I suppose I shouldn’t have hissed at her the other night because she touched my tail, huh?” -Mayhem