Today is a good day to go through my referer logs.

The Top 10 Search Terms:
vlad taltos
html clock
female fantasy authors
random quiz
centipedes
plush germs
taltos
grass jelly
pr0n
merovingian line

Okay, the centipedes bother me, because I HATE centipedes. (shudder)
Also, I’m certain that people looking for actual pr0n were quite disappointed by the flower pr0n.

Now for the odder things:

male chest
Please go here: See the category “Covers Gone Wild”

reading/short passages about secrets on shoes
That’s me. International woman of mystery and secrets on shoes.

fairy tale told the opposite way
Told the opposite way of what? Start with the moral and end with “Once upon a time”?

pictures of euthanasia requests
Okay, that’s screwed up.

funny folk tales that no one has heard of before
If no one has heard them before, then they’re not folktales.

fairy tales translated to italian
Why are you searching in English?

what do a photosynthesis really do
A photosynthesis is the little man that lives in plants and changes them into vegetables.

phoenix guards if i
…completed my search terms I’d get better results

www. holle kitty partying.
Is this a typo or a perversion?

folktales that involve real folktales not just make believe
Maybe you’re not understanding what a folktale is.

spinach police uniforms
That must be one of those new, city trends.

Here’s an interesting study:

Finger length predicts physically aggressive personalities

I particularly liked the quote from the author of the paper.

Dr. Peter Hurd initially thought the idea was “a pile of hooey,” but he changed his mind when he saw the data.

However, the research only holds true for men.

Either I’m losing my mind, or I’m listening to an instrumental Ozzy Ozbourne cover on XM’s Beyond Jazz channel.

Maybe it’s just a sign that I should go take a long hot shower and try to relax some more.

The Grand Tour (2004) by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

If you’ve already read Sorcery and Cecelia, then you’ll need little or no encouragement to pick up The Grand Tour. Cousins Kate and Cecelia are taking the grand tour of Europe on their honeymoons. Within almost no time, they are caught up in intrigue involving ancient magical artifacts, and a secret group that was active during Napoleon’s reign as Emperor of France.

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This is far more interesting than I had initially expected it to be: Movie Timeline. What is movies were true? What would the timeline of the past and future look like?

This is amusing. In a very, very strange way.

Also took me a minute to get, the first time I looked at it.

But it’s also strange. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Andy send me a link to Nemester.

You can’t sign up yet, but when you can, all things considered, I probably should. Just to keep track, you know.

Good Luck Gina!

It’s been a tough 5 1/2 years, but we’ve worked hard and managed somehow.

So in closing, one of my favorite exchanges:

We were explaining to a new graduate assistant how, because of the layout of the lab, we spent more time with each other than we did with our husbands.

Gina: We spend so much time together…
Michelle: …we even finish each others sentences.
Gina: It’s like being married…
Michelle: …only without the sex.
Gina: It’s exactly like being married.

So I’m not just losing a co-worker, I’m losing a wife.

Grave Peril (2001) Jim Butcher

The third book in The Dresden Files series occurs several months after the events of the last book, and introduces us to another of Harry Dresden’s friends and companions, Michael, a Knight of the Cross. Michael is helping Harry put down an uprising of ghosts that are rising up and wreaking havoc in Chicago.

Read More aboutGrave Peril

Dear Eliot Spitzer,

Fuck you.

Appalachia is not an insult. It’s my home.

I never did get around to posting pictures of my bookshelf. Mostly because that would involve a LOT of pictures, since I have a lot of books.

So for your amusement, here’s my computer desk at home. Just to give you a tiny peek into my life. The part off to the left where the light is shining? That’s the table where I continually lose the battle of “keeping clean.” However. since you can’t see it, then for all intents and purposes, it is clean. Ha!
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Fool Moon (2001) Jim Butcher

Nope. I wasn’t at the bookstore right when it opened this morning, to get the second book in the Harry Dresden Files.

The store had been open for at least twenty minutes when I got there.

Plus, it was on the way to the grocery store.

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Storm Front (2000) Jim Butcher

Amazon had been recommending Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files to me for about a year However, the cover just looked like something I was not going to be interested in reading. But it kept coming up in relation to authors that I really like (Charlaine Harris, Simon Green) so I decided to actually look at the book.

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Me: I’ve often thought that if someone tied me up…
Gina: WHAT?!
Me: …that I’d be mute. Because I talk with my hands so much.
Gina: That’s not where I thought you were going with that.

Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth (2006) Simon R. Green

To be honest, I was less than pleased with the last Nightside book, Paths Not Taken. The story was good, but I had a hard time accepting that John Taylor was really as cold-blooded as he came off. Luckily, Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth returns to the John Taylor of the earlier Nightside books. Still no one you want to mess with, but not a totally cold-blooded bastard.

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The Farthest Shore (1972) Ursula K. Le Guin

The final book in The Earthsea Trilogy, as A Wizard of Earthsea tells of the start of Ged’s life as a wizard, The Farthest Shore closes his adventures.

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I just decided that the song most UNlike my life right now?

Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”

If only I could get the song out of my head, where it’s acting like it wants to be a soundtrack to things that aren’t happening to me.

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) Ursula K. Le Guin

Strangely enough, as much fantasy as I read, I’d never gotten around to reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy. I’ve had the books for a couple of years, but for one reason or another, never got around to reading them. It’s a short book, my copy has only 183 pages (same for the reprint I just looked up), so I kept putting off reading it until a time when I needed a short book to read. Well, that time seems to be now.

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The Tombs of Atuan (1970) Ursula K. Le Guin

The second book in the Earthsea Trilogy, The Tombs of Atuan tells the story of Tenar, who becomes Arha, the Eaten One, and High Priestess of the Nameless Ones. Tenar is taken from her home at the age of five becuase she is the reincarnation of Arha. The tombs beneath the city are her realm and her responsibility.

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And this? Made me laugh out loud.

Spring is on the horizon, so you know what that means!

Flower pr0n!

The heather and crocuses are blooming right now, but I haven’t gotten a picture of the crocuses (and now probably won’t). But I got two nice pictures of the heather. What I like best about these pictures is they look better than the heather does as an whole plant.

The heather has just limped along for the past four years, but it’s still there, and it’s blooming, so I suppose I don’t have much call for complaint.

Okay, are you prepared to be jealous?
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Brokedown Palace (1986) Steven Brust

I don’t know how long it’s been since I read Brokedown Palace, but it was long enough ago that I didn’t remember any of the story, and I don’t think I’d yet read many of his books other than the first couple Vlad Taltos books. Which meant that there were plenty of pleasant surprise in store for me as I reread this book.

Read more about Brokedown Palace

At least I’m not a zombie.
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It’s spring break here at WVU, so posting will be sporadic.

Not that I’ve been consistent or anything for the past several months, but still.

In the meantime, here’re some bits I’ve come across that might amuse you:

Current Earth Destruction Status (found several different places)
and
How to Destroy the Earth (I may actually have mentioned this before)

Hamster Tracker

And let me tell you, I know y’all have been jealous of our spring break travails in the past, but this year… just wait till you see the details!