There I was, reading Cracked.com’s 10 Awesome Ads (for Traumatizing Children), when I came across the Nike ad embedded below. And I watched it. And watched it again. And watched it again. And again. Maybe I’m the one who’s cracked, but damn, there’s something about this ad I just like. It appeals to the creative part of me, the one that’s somehow tempted to get about half a dozen RPG characters (and at least one major plot) out of this one ad:
While I’m at it, here’s today’s book review, of Yasmine Galenorn’s Demon Mistress!
What is it with shoes on the side of the road? For years now I’ve seen tons of shoes just lying on roads, whether city streets, suburban drives, or highways. Often just one; occasionally two. I mentioned it to my husband, and soon he started noticing it too. It’s like socks disappearing in dryers. Then we mentioned it to a friend of ours, and she couldn’t help but notice them either. I swear, it isn’t just me!
So it was with jaw on the floor that some weeks ago I stumbled across an aerial image of a mysterious pile of shoes spread out along the side of a highway, with an accompanying article saying that no one had any idea where they’d come from. I showed it to my husband, commenting that apparently the shoe trend had reached its (il)logical conclusion.
If you’re a sudoku addict (I’ve just recently gotten hooked, although frankly I’m not that good at it!), Web Sudoku is pretty handy when you have a few spare minutes.
Finally, if you want a more immediate way to know when we’ve posted a review, put items at the shops on sale, etc., then you can follow along on Twitter.
The first book review of the new year is of Yasmine Galenorn’s Night Huntress. I had some stylistic problems with it, but it was a very enjoyable book. Also, if you enjoy our reviews, please consider voting for Errant Dreams in the Preditors & Editors Poll!
Meanwhile, someone who shall remain nameless got me addicted to a game called Dragon Tavern. It’s a simple D&D-esque web adventure game. You don’t even have to give them your email address in order to create an account and play. Nor do you have to pay a dime, although there are ways to spend money on it if you really want that. If you don’t spend any money on it then it’s pretty good at limiting your addiction through limiting the number of turns you get per day… although you can even find your way around that easily by creating a ton of characters.
We also have a bunch of new items that I’ve been putting up at our Etsy shop and Shop Handmade shop, mostly a bunch of Richard’s gorgeous necklaces right now. Soon we’ll be cleaning out the level 70 designs at cafepress, so hurry if you want one!
I’m also addicted to DragonWars on Facebook. *sigh*
We’ve pretty much finished rolling out the level 80 T-shirt designs at cafepress. This means two things: first, we expect to phase out the level 70 designs around the end of the year; we’ll keep them on sale until then, so grab ‘em while you can! Second, we think the level 80 designs are even better than the level 70 designs, and the level 70 designs have been quite popular. So be the first to get your own!
Also, cafepress has added some new items, like travel mugs and the flip mino camcorder. Yes, a pocket-sized camcorder. What will they add next?! Pssst—level 80 items make great holiday gifts for gamers!
In unrelated news, I almost always put brief excerpted versions of my reviews on Amazon, just for the heck of it. I thought it was kind of cool when I went from starting out in the 700,000s (back before there were millions of users posting reviews) to the 700s. Apparently today they started calculating the reviewer ranking differently. Partly to stop people from “ballot-box stuffing”, or finding ways to rate their own reviews. Partly to emphasize whether a person’s reviews are seen as helpful or not, so that quantity doesn’t trump quality. And partly to emphasize newness of reviews, so new reviewers get a chance to climb up the ladder.
And suddenly my rank went, literally overnight, from 679 to 64. That’s pretty cool.
I almost always avoid talking politics here, because that just isn’t what I want from this blog or this site. Talking politics nearly always devolves into nastiness, and I want this to be a comfortable, enjoyable site to visit. I do have to post this one video, however, not because of its politics, but simply because while the production value is quite low, the humor factor is quite high. Enjoy it for a laugh thanks to the amusing lyrics and hilarious facial expressions, and don’t worry about the politics of it:
Meanwhile, I’ve reviewed Mercedes Lackey’s Foundation and Candace Havens’s The Demon King and I. Coming up: reviews of some Cuisipro cookie cutters, measuring spoons, and a pastry blender; reviews of two cookbooks.
If you’re thinking of buying any of our beaded bookmarks [link] from our etsy shop—now’s the perfect time! I just got a shipment of new bookmark making supplies in after using up my original stash, and in celebration I’ve marked ALL of the previous bookmarks down by 20-30%! They make great stocking-stuffers.
Although I’ve seemed relatively quiet these last few weeks, I haven’t been idle. Today’s book review is of Deidre Knight’s Red Fire, a paranormal romance involving Georgia and immortal Spartans. Really.
I’ve been taking a ton of photos while out and about, mostly of plants and flowers; here’s a sample:
I’ve also been putting together (and posting at our etsy store) plenty of jewelry and beaded bookmarks. Of course what with the economic crisis this was exactly the wrong time to start such an endeavor—I hear even the long-time sellers at Etsy with large followings have made few sales in the past weeks—but I have patience. I can wait until things get better, and in the meantime I’ll build up our stock of lovely things. I’m getting much better at taking photos of items, thanks to a light box and lots of practice:
If you want to buy any of them, the photos at DeviantArt have links below them to their listings at Etsy, or you can go directly to our etsy store (errantdreams.etsy.com). There are a few items that are more expensive—usually jewelry sets—but there are also plenty of items that are under $10.
Plenty more things to come soon! I have some cookware to review, as well as a ton of books. I’m in the middle of reading Ad Hudler’s Man of the House, and we’re making recipes out of some cookbooks I haven’t reviewed yet. So stick around!
Background: I used to work as the receptionist at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (about 15 years ago). I spent a lot of time typesetting physics papers (that’s how I developed tendonitis) and dealt with a bunch of physics professors, post-docs, and grad students. One of the more fun folks at the CTP was Sean Carroll, who was at the time a post-doc.
Imagine my surprise when, upon watching a Lewis Black comedy special on pay per view tonight in which a couple of comedians “debated” whether it was high school or American Idol that was the root of all evil, I briefly saw him there. He was one of three scientists shown in a clip of a fictitious “last scientist standing” American Idol-style science show.
Dang he’s aged well! And, may I say, it’s VERY surreal tuning in to watch one of your favorite comedians and seeing a clip of someone you used to work with ten or fifteen years ago. I think my head just asploded.
Yes, that’s a technical term.
More soon. Sorry for the lack of communication, but we’ve had a friend visiting from out of town all week!
…for, “my cat just tried to ‘help’ me do the step aerobics program, but I successfully completed it AND didn’t step on her.” And it should give you some sort of bonus points on your score. ‘Cause let me tell you, that’s a whole ‘nother level of difficulty!
Speaking of cats, the latest book review is of Jane Seabrook’s Purry Logic, which is just plain cool! I’m sorry that was it for reviews this week; Monday was a holiday, and then I spent most of the rest of the week working on other things. We’re THIS close to opening that Etsy store; I made a bunch more of those cloth bags; and I kind of got hooked on playing with a fractal program and turning the results into pieces of art:
I’ve also spent a lot of time working on our upcoming level 80 designs for Cafepress; speaking of which, all level 70 designs are on sale—and we’ll be phasing most of them out eventually, so get ‘em while you can!
There are at least three upcoming book reviews, though: of a health care book, a cookbook for cancer survivors, and a pricing/business book for crafters, most immediately. In the meantime, here’s a random bit of fun: (more…)
A couple of months ago I noticed that there was a new organic market opening near us. ‘Great!’ I thought. ‘We won’t have to go all the way into Annapolis for good produce and specialty flours and such!’ Eventually this last week I noticed that they appeared to be open (it’s hard to tell from the road) and I did a little searching online to find out their hours. Eventually I located their site. I discovered the owners used to operate a smaller health food store that mostly carried vitamins, nutritional supplements, and health foods, off somewhere on a side street in the area. They’d decided the time was right (and the newly-built location was right) for opening a real organic foods market. They opened on the 8th of August; we went in on the 31st. By the time we went in, it looked like they were already dying on the vine.
Anything perishable (meats, produce, dairy) was in short supply, and either in perfect condition (i.e. just laid out) or really piss-poor condition (i.e., no turnover, and I guess they can no longer afford to throw stuff out and turn it over themselves). I could only find one usable tomato. Of the three(!) quarts of milk on the shelves, two had expired three days earlier. The shop was very clean and very well-organized, so I don’t think it was a case of them not caring—I think they’ve just hit the end of their money and stuff isn’t selling. There was only one other customer in there while we were there, and at any other grocery store we go to it would have been prime shopping time (late Sunday morning, just before lunch).
It looked like they’d made some questionable decisions. The location isn’t great, IMO: it’s tough to see from the road at all. The only reason we noticed it is because I caught sight of it as the passenger; as my husband noted, if it had just been him as driver in the car, he wouldn’t have had the time in passing to read the sign (small sign on a reasonably fast highway). Also, we heard nothing about their opening other than the one sign I spotted, so I’m thinking they must not have done much in the way of effective marketing. When I searched online for them I found a couple of brief mentions in local forums, and one short article printed before they opened in a publication I’d never heard of.
I think they also made some questionable decisions inside the store. They appeared to be carrying a lot of highly specialized stuff that only a few people would want. Whole trays of wheatgrass, but no squash of any kind, either winter or summer? Don’t get me wrong, the bags of pappadum snacks are freakin’ awesome and I could gain several pounds on those alone, but I’m thinking most shoppers would rather buy chips. I’m glad I finally found a source for amaranth and teff flours, but so few people are interested in those that even the Whole Foods Market in Annapolis doesn’t carry them, and Annapolis has a higher-income selection of residents who are thus more likely to shop for such ingredients. (Besides, it isn’t huge as grocery stores go, and even people who want amaranth flour or teff flour will probably only buy them once every handful of months. So it’s not a great use of space.)
I feel really badly for them. They clearly put a lot of love into the store, stocking items they thought were cool and that couldn’t be found elsewhere in the area, and I loved being able to buy those things. They got top of the line checkout equipment with touch-screens. But they don’t appear to have done the market research necessary to make sure they had the right inventory, location, and marketing, and it was probably just the wrong time and place for such a store. Certainly if they stay open I’ll go there when I can for specialty stuff, but honestly, a lot of what I want an organic market for is the produce—and for that, it’s clear I’ll still have to go to Whole Foods.
In more upbeat news, in light of the crafting stuff we’ve been doing lately, I finally initiated a section of crafting links in the links directory. Feel free to sign up for a free account if you want to submit links for crafters’ supply shops, storefronts, community sites, or blogs. Just make sure it has something to do with hand-crafting!
Speaking of hand-crafting, here are a couple more shots of recent projects:
We’re getting closer to opening up that etsy shop—we’ll let you know when it happens! In the meantime, we do have some new stuff up at cafepress. I turned some of my flower photos and photomanipulations into gift items like mugs, prints, and greeting cards in our flower-lovers’ section. The mixed flowers section so far includes items with four different photos on them. Here are a couple samples of our new designs:
We also have a little bit of psychology humor for you geeks out there, with our ink blot test design:
No book review today, I’m afraid. Between taking a four-day weekend, dealing with a new cherry allergy (having a rash on the roof of your mouth and on your lips sucks), sewing a bunch of bags from that scrap of skull fabric, making jewelry, and putting up designs on cafepress, I didn’t quite finish the book I was reading. Soon!
