I know there was something I wanted to post about, but my brain seems to be in a fog and I have no idea what it was. Oh well. I can at least link to the new site stuff.

First, the reviews. There’s yummy stuff in The Superfood Cookbook—how can you resist a combination of delicious, easy, quick, and nutritious??

I’ve also posted reviews of Mathias Freese’s enchanting Down to a Sunless Sea and Robert Cutler’s The Secret Scroll. In case you ever wondered whether all those high-scoring reviews indicated that I was too easy on review copies, worry no more—I don’t pan books very often, but that latter one made me want to tear my hair out.

Next, two more T-shirt designs. There’s a bit of relationship humor called going unsteady and a shirt for the Gnomish Air Force:

If I remember what I was going to say, I’ll just post again later!

Many things have changed since we first started selling shirts & stuff through cafepress at Gamers’ Heaven and Caffeinated Chicanery. I have a better sense of what will translate well from my screen to a T-shirt, mug, or poster. Cafepress now allows us to use the same transparent-background image on dark and light items since they have better printing processes. I have a copy of Photoshop. I have some actual—*gasp*—experience!

Now that all of these things have happened, I noted that our earliest designs were kind of… embarrassing, frankly, next to the recent ones. So, bit by bit, I’m going back through and re-working them. I’m also cleaning house on the designs that never did well. Here I will present you with some of the new/old designs that I’ve done so far; I’m starting off with the gaming shop. First, “I’m not lazy I’m just out of mana,” also known as our first runaway bestseller, which won second place in a Cafepress holiday contest based on sales:

(more…)

But first… the latest book review is of Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s The Perennial Boarder. Also, since people have been asking me for more detail about the bar code scanner option over at LibraryThing after I mentioned it the other day, I promise that once I’ve gotten my scanner and played around with it a bit, I’ll make a full report/review of what I think of LibraryThing. I can tell you so far that I’m totally addicted, however, and that the 200+ books I’ve entered by hand are barely scraping the surface. I also still have to decide whether I want to use LT with tags the way some people do to keep track of those books I’ve read but don’t end up deciding to keep—some of the books I review, for example, I end up donating to the library when I’m done if I know I won’t read them again.

Now, to pass on the latest T-shirt designs. First, we’ve added one to the Caffeinated Chicanery shop; great for creative people who are tired of always finding out that someone thought of their brilliant idea first:

I hate people who steal
my ideas before I think of them

And we’ve also added to the Gamers’ Heaven shop:

“What do you mean I don’t get frequent flyer miles for gryphon flights?!” and “Invalid Target”.

We were taken by surprise when our Level 70 Mom design turned out to be the runaway success of this year’s holiday season at our Cafepress store; we made it in time for Mother’s Day this year, but apparently the winter holidays are seeing a big resurgence in love for moms. We quickly designed a Level 70 Dad design to go with it. When that proved popular as well (apparently all the cool parents are wearing gamer gear this year!) we knew we had to branch out a bit. You guys sure do keep us busy! First, for married couples, the 70 Husband and 70 Wife designs (hmm, I guess since my husband helped to come up with this idea it would probably be anticlimactic to get him one of these for his holiday present; back to the drawing board!).

[Urk. Brief pause to convince my cat to stop stepping on the mouse button. Devil-kitty indeed.]

And finally, the 70 Boyfriend and 70 Girlfriend designs:

In unrelated news, today’s book review is of the Red Lion Inn Cookbook, Third Edition. It’s one of the major books that provided the recipes for our Thanksgiving feast. Enjoy!

Afterword: You know, there’s something wrong with a day in which I get most of my major productivity done before 6 am. Not that I’m complaining about being productive, mind you.

*blinks sleepily and glances at the watch*

Yes, yes it is.

Here are some links to the latest book reviews:

• The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook
• Liza Fosburgh, Soups & Stews for Fall and Winter Days
• Jack R. Nerad, Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hybrid & Alternative Fuel Vehicles

I now have the ability to easily add new links to the main page of the site, so it’s being updated quickly now. I’m in the middle of reading Bill James’s Wolves of Memory and hope to have a review up for that Monday at latest.

An early-morning conversation:

Me: I’ve noticed a pattern. I’m most prone to insomnia after sugary, fatty desserts.
My husband: Another good reason to eat well and take care of ourselves.
Me: Oh, speaking of, I ran some EVE missions last night and sent you another 3 million ISK for implants.
My husband: I’ll pick up some cupcakes on the way home from work.

Actual conversation.

I deployed three new designs to the cafepress stores last night. One went to Caffeinated Chicanery, the writing-reading-cooking-humor-etc. store:

THAT
They told me I couldn’t
wear that on a T-shirt

Okay, so we might be over-fond of wordplay and irony-based humor, but I think lots of other people appreciate it too.

The other two went to Gamers’ Heaven, our gamers & geeks store:

Level 70 Dad

It’s the companion piece to our Level 70 Mom design; I noticed sales of the latter were going up noticeably as the Christmas season approaches, figured folks were buying them as gifts, and thought it would be nice to have a matching design for dads too. So I set our business partner to the task of brainstorming image designs, and then I put them together. Fun process.

The other is called ‘Boss Faction,’ and it’s for all you working Warcraft or other mmorpg players:

I’m not kissing ass
I’m just grinding boss faction

Don’t forget if you sign up for the monthly store newsletters (left-hand navigation column, at the bottom) you’ll get access to a subscribers’-only sale each month. Also you won’t have to worry about missing our special announcement later this season!

That’s it for now, I think, although I’m sleepy enough that I’m not sure.