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Review: One Night in Sixes
One Night in Sixes by Arianne “Tex” Thompson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I added this book to my To Read list back in 2014 after hearing Ms. Thompson interviewed on Sword and Laser. I had a slightly different impression of what the plot would be – I think the interview focused on the…
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Review: Aces High (Wild Cards, #2)
Aces High by George R.R. Martin My rating: 4 of 5 stars As usual for an anthology, I’m going to post my thoughts on each story, but before I get to that, my thoughts on the book as a whole. It was a big change from the previous book and that might be good, bad,…
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Thunderbird Chicken Scratch
Last time I was in Florida my mom took me to a specialty BBQ store, Just Grillin, off of Dale Mabry in Carrollwood. I didn’t know such places existed. I thought everyone just bought their grills at a hardware store, Amazon, or direct from the company. It was a pretty great to be able to…
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Review: Dead Witch Walking
Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison My rating: 3 of 5 stars I got the book as a part of a bundle, and I’ll say that the cover (same as the one currently associated with the book on Goodreads – a red-head in a backless top and black pants) kept me away from the book…
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Perfect Blue
I used to hate Hunger Games because I considered it to be yet another example of America getting credit, fame, etc from another culture’s work; Battle Royale in this case. Eventually, I got the Hunger Games Trilogy from a Humble Bundle and read it, realizing that while the plots were the same in the abstract…
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Review: Hunt at the Well of Eternity
Hunt at the Well of Eternity by Gabriel Hunt My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’m pretty dang sure I got this book during one of B&N’s free ebook fridays. I don’t know if they still do that, but it’s something they used to do when I first got my Nook. There’s no way I…
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Sam and Stella’s Five Month Portraits [Studio Style]
What I edited and what I didn’t Danielle mentioned that it looked like I’d messed around with the image because the strings on Sam’s photo looked fake. Actually, that’s how it was captured in the camera. The strings were reflective and, as I’m about to get into, there was a lot of light in this…
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Scarlett colors some Easter Eggs
You’re never 100% sure what kids are going to enjoy. We know that Scarlett loves painting. Would she love coloring Easter Eggs? The answer was YUP!
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The Continued Evolution of Scarlett’s Mind
I’ve mentioned before that I find Scarlett’s mental development utterly fascinating. As someone who’s always been fascinated with the science of cognition (You Are Not So Smart is my new favorite podcast) and psychology, it’s amazing to see her capabilities grow and change as long with her physical growth. Her most recent new ability is…
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Survivorship Bias and the Brain
Earlier in the year I came across an io9 article around 15 science fiction and fantasy novels that were rejected by publishers. The implication, of course, is what fools those publishers were – look at how many sales these books got and how how popular they remain today. Some of the books included The War…
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Three Female Pin-up Artists
Boing Boing linked to an article about three women who worked in pin-up art. (While most of the images are tame enough to view at work, there are at least three drawings of fully nude women in the article, so it’s up to you) I was fascinated by this because it seems odd that women…
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Portland, OR rejects flouride in the drinking water
When I was still a young lad, we lived in Oregon for a while; just outside of Portland. I remember my mom making us chew these horrible tasting “vitamins”. I asked my mom what they were and she told me it was because they didn’t fluoridate the water. She didn’t want our teeth to get…
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San Francisco Trip Day 1
We flew to San Francisco to attend my brother-in-law’s wedding, but Danielle and I had wanted to go there for years so we decided to have a week-long vacation. Scarlett was amazing on the airplane. It was her second flight in her short life. However, the flight to Florida is so short that if you…
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November 2012 Video Games Report
Civilization V (17 hrs) – I took advantage of the Steam Fall Sale to finally pick up the Gods and Kings expansion to Civ V. I have enjoyed founding my own religion, Otakuism. Religion plays a much more key role than they did in Civ IV. In the previous game, I would pretty much just…
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Top 200 Photos: #31
Painting techniques in today’s Top 200 Photo photo #31 is: It was quite a challenge to paint my house when we first moved in. Of Danielle, her father, mother, and I, neither of us had painted before. Her mother had done some painting under the direction of her uncle, but not on her own. So…