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Congrats to Vicki T, Tina, and Lauren L, who won the Three Fates anthology by Mary Calmes, Andrew Grey, and Amy Lane. Three Fates is being released by Dreamspinner Press today.

Congrats to Pat N, who won Accounting for Luke (Dangerous Lovers #2) by Amber Kell!

Congrats to Sally, who won Summer School by Tam Ames! Summer School will be released by Silver Publishing on July 28.

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Contests

• Joyfully Jay is giving away an ebook copy of Calling the Show by JA Rock. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, July 27.

• Josephine Myles is giving away an ebook from the backlist of Christiane France. Closes 9 am GMT, July 30.

• Pants Off Reviews is giving away an ebook copy of The Summer Place by Ariel Tachna. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, July 30.

• Tracy’s giving away a paperback and an ebook copy of Savage: Daughters of the Jaguar by Willow Rose. Closes 7 pm PDT, July 31.

• Pants Off Reviews is giving away an ebook copy of Moonlight, Tiger, and Smoke by Connie Bailey. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, July 31.

Bookity

• A list of July’s new LGBT releases from Elisa Rolle.

• Book and publishing news from Dear Author.

• An author and book blogger on being sued for using a copyrighted image in a blog post.

• VacuousMinx on the structural problems she sees with Goodreads and how GRs may have decided that readers are the problem…

• Extremely configurable wall shelves.

• A hotel owner in the UK has replaced all the nightstand bibles with copies of Fifty Shades of Grey…

• Harry Potter and the Ten Years Later is a new web series.

• Composite technology could reveal the faces of literary characters.

• “Paper Passion” is a new perfume that smells like freshly printed books.

• From Paperback Writer, “Ten things that may indicate you’ve written a McOpener”.

• “You Chose Wrong” is a tumblr of endings gone wrong from the Choose Your Own Adventure series. (via Tor.com)

• Carolyn Crane has some handy blog buttons for authors fighting against GRs bullies. (HUMOR)

• Auntie Special Snowflake on how authors can become rich and famous online, winning the internet war, and an author’s most important battle.

Ebookity

• Ebooks, libraries, and publishing. (via Unshelved)

• Check out what’s available at the International Children’s Digital Library.

• Amazon has relisted free public domain ebooks, which breaks external links.

• Are authors who stick with traditional publishers hurting their future careers?

• Kindle 3G web browsing outside of the US will now be capped at 50 mb per month.

• More on privacy and ereading from Dear Author, specifically focusing on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Kobo.

Do, Think, Make, Learn

• Chick fil-A’s CEO made it clear his company is against marriage equality. The Jim Henson Company does not wish to partner with Chick fil-A in the future. Chick fil-A may or may not have created a fake Facebook account as part of this. Boston’s mayor wrote a letter to Chick fil-A, telling the company it wasn’t welcome in Boston. Unfortunately, the ACLU said that’s unconstitutional.

• Mitt Romney puts his foot in his mouth re: Sally Ride… And yay, The Mountains Goats/John Darnielle! 🙂 (Thanks, Jeanne!)

• The Norwegian response to terrorism makes me want to move to Norway…

• Learn the difference between llamas and alpacas.

• Which are the top airports for spreading disease?

• Poor airlines – a court has ruled that they have to tell the truth about airfares.

• Make your own charging station. (via CRAFT)

• What you need for making your own simple home gym.

• A rubber band can protect your walls when you have to pull out nails with a hammer.

• You can search Google from your tablet or phone by scribbling letters on the screen instead of typing.

• Deaf people might be able to get near-real time subtitles/text translation of things happening around them.

• New gluten-free beer labeling policy in the US. Why it’s hard to assess hydrolyzed and fermented products (including beer) for gluten. (Keep that in mind when considering “gluten-free” barley-based beer such as Omission.)

• Learn more about Amy Begley, gluten-free Olympian.

• Keep an eye out for ATM skimmers…

Cookity

• Try substituting avocado for butter when you bake.

• Corn, tomato, & black bean tostadas with creamy cilantro dressing.

• Golden quinoa salad with radish, dill, & avocado.

• Grilled artichoke pesto zucchini bites. (via The Kitchn)

• Spicy swiss chard chips. (via The Kitchn)

• Lemon chicken with artichokes. (via The Kitchn)

• Make your own smoked salmon.

• Bacon s’mores.

• Hazelnut mandarin polenta cake. (via The Kitchn)

• Gluten-free, dairy-free pear-pecan sour cream coffee cake muffins.

• Constellation cookies.

• Carrot cake and almond butter popsicles. (via The Kitchn)

• Frozen lemon mascarpone cheesecake. (via Keira Andrews)

• Creme brulee ice cream. (via The Kitchn)

• 20 ice cream recipes.

• 15 zucchini recipes.

• 11 pesto recipes.

• 10 recipes that use leftover coffee.

Drinkity

• Berry mint chocolate kiss.

• Tropical sangria (scroll down). (via The Kitchn)

• Sparkling white peach sangria.

• White peach cooler. (via The Kitchn)

• Hot and spicy Bloody Mary granita. (via The Kitchn)

Crafty

• Braid a jump rope from plastic bags. (via CRAFT)

• Knitted Olympians.

• Knitted landscapes. (via CRAFT)

Cool

• TARDIS tea infuser. (via The Mary Sue)

• TARDIS closet. (via CRAFT)

• Terry Gilliam’s daughter digs through his personal archives. (via The Mary Sue)

• Knitting, food, and photo linkity from MrsPao.

• Floating mug that doesn’t leave moisture rings on furniture. (via Becky Black’s tumblr)

• View-Master photo frame.

• Will there be more scifi things happening at the Olympics?

• Photos of Einstein. (via Tor.com)

• xkcd’s “What If?” blog makes physics way more interesting and accessible than I remember it being in college. This week, I learned what would happen if you gathered a mole of moles together. O.O

• Lamp with a bulletin board lampshade.

• The Disney anti-princesses.

• Cute video called “Don’t, Darren, Don’t” about red shirts and other characters who tend to die in movies and on tv.

• What NASA thinks are the five most beautiful pictures of the Earth as taken by Landsat satellites.

• Gorillas destroying poachers’ snares.

Cool or Wha…?

• I really can’t see this cat hammock keeping cats off the furniture…

• Fingernail lawns.

• Elephant sculpture covered by sunflower seeds.

• Cross stitched Final Fantasy Monopoly board.

• TARDIS shed protected by a Dalek. (via The Mary Sue)

• Light-up lightsaber chopsticks.

• Chewbacca messenger bag.

• Roaring wookie alarm clock.

• Shark laundry hamper.

• Buildings inspired by fairytale illustrations.

• A Minnesota bar has a pregnancy test dispenser in the bathroom.

Wha…?

• An 11-year old managed to fly from the UK to Rome without a ticket, passport, or accompanying adult.

• Giant squirrel head feeder.

• Dog-shaped scratching post.

• Urns shaped like your head to hold your cremated ashes…

• “Experiment reveals 6% of humans casually murder rubber animals“.

LOL

• Keep calm… True Blood style.

• 15 autocorrects related to movies.

• Bagpipes and a penguin.

• How many goats/sheep/chickens/guinea pigs/cows would it take to mow your lawn? (via Gizmodo)

• In case you were unsure…

• Eyelash wish log. (hover the cursor over the comic for additional text)

• Unicorn chasers and oddly specific apologies at Cake Wrecks.

• If you’re wondering when Texas will see cooler weather…

• How to tell if it’s way too hot.

• “How to suck at your religion“.

• “Not everyone likes to snuggle.“

• The Incredible Supercat!

• Make sure you keep your cats cool in this heat!

• I just assume May’s trying to dig through the center of the planet when she does this.

• Contortionist cat.

• Possessive cats…

Teh Cute

• Black cats! Black cat! Black kitten! Leopard and baby! Black jaguar! Snow leopard and baby! Egret! Cheetah and baby! Cheetah and babies! Bison! Wombat! Baby otters! Rock hyrax and babies (they’re the closest living relative of elephants)! Red panda! Pygmy rabbits! Manatee and baby! Spotty toes! Baby padu! Baby tiger! Panda and baby! Baby cougar! Cat!

Reading Update
Wacky Wednesday by JA Rock. ebook. Very good kinky m/m romance about a dom and his younger sub who haven’t been connecting very well recently… and then they wake up to find they’ve switched bodies, which definitely gives them the chance to understand each other better!
Daddio (Horizons #3) by Mickie B. Ashling. ebook. Very good m/m romance that picks up six months after the second book as Lil and Grier settle into their relationship – Lil learning to parent, Grier working to control his anger, and both of them learning to communicate and compromise. Jody and Clark are back, too! Plus there’s plenty of smutty goodness to go around. 🙂
Marlowe’s Ghost by Sarah Black. ebook. Very good paranormal m/m romance about a former Marine turned history scholar who goes to England at the request of a professor to check up on the professor’s sickly, scholarly nephew and perhaps shepherd him back to the US. The lyrical writing was vaguely scholarly and packed with info about Christopher Marlowe, yet didn’t have the brain dump quality that some of Black’s other works have had.
A Better Man (The Men of Halfway House #1) by RJ Scott & Jaime Reese. Very good m/m romance about a contractor who’s been unable to find work and is about to be homeless, so he answers an ad for a handyman job that turns out to be much, much more. And what’s up with his secretive, prickly, and attractive new boss? I’m glad there’s a sequel planned, because I want to see what the next chapter of their lives looks like!
The Auspicious Troubles of Chance (The Auspicious Troubles of Love #1) by Charlie Cochet. ebook. Very good historical m/m romance about a guy who lost everything that mattered to him and has been living on the edge ever since. He knows he can’t keep going on as he has been, so… he joins the French Foreign Legion.
Roses in the Devil’s Garden (Fallen Rose #1) by Charlie Cochet. free ebook short. Very good short historical m/m romance about two NYC Prohibition agents who constantly have to be on the lookout for agents on the take. Definitely looking forward to reading the next book!
Lost in My Waking Dream by Charlie Cochet. ebook short. Good short sort of historical romance, sort of not (can’t say more without being spoilery) about a guy who feels as if he’s surely been going crazy since the Great War.

Latin Boyz by PA Brown. ebook. Good but unevenly paced m/m suspense with a tiny bit of almost romance thrown in. Actually, this reminded me of an Oprah book – the depressing stuff tended to overwhelm the happy moments and… it did not end so well.

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People periodically ask how I get such good pictures of Chaos and Mayhem. (Aw, thank you!) The secret is to take lots and lots of pictures, crop, and don’t be afraid to tweak the pictures to make them more interesting (plus tweaking can hide a multitude of problems). I’m all about simplicity when I work on pictures – I use a simple photo editor to crop and then tweak in Picasa. Here’s a crappy original:

Here’s the crappy original cropped to focus on the cats:

And here’s the cropped and tweaked final version (still crappy, but more interesting):

“Quit taking my picture! I’m outta here.” -Chaos

“Yeah! What the big kitty said! You are trying to steal our souls!!” -Mayhem