Welcome back, everyone! It’s our first links of 2024! How are we all feeling?
For New Year’s Eve, my partner and I attend a prix fixe, 5-course dinner at around 5:30 and then chilled out and played video games until right before midnight. We watched the ball drop and were in bed by 12:15am!
Some of my Christmas items were a lovely, plush electric blanket. Seriously, it’s a godsend. I also received tickets to see my favorite band in concert. It’s the 20th anniversary of their debut album, which I listened to a lot in high school, and wow does that make me feel my age a little.
How did you celebrate?
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Calling all sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative romance writers! The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association is hosting a virtual meetup, presented by their Romance Steering Committee. This event is on Saturday, January 20th and features three panels and networking opportunities. Tickets are $10.
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Thanks to EC Spurlock for this nightmare fuel. Apparently someone discovered a body butter scent that attracts spiders. No thanks!
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This year, my partner and I watched Home Alone and Home Alone 2 and frequented commented about how rich the McCallister family must be. Well, someone did the math and we were definitely right.
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My partner sent me this graph from XKCD. Also side note…is this a scatterplot or some other type of graph/chart? Please help me!
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
I’m always looking for new displacement activities to fidget with while I unwind with a beverage and a short story podcast. And it has to be something not very verbal so I could focus on the story.
I love mystery jigsaw puzzles, but my new love is the free unlimited access to Set!
and no ads!
https://smart-games.org/en/set/
Am I the only person (nerd) who is bothered by the fact that that Twitter post refers to it as “kryptonite” for spiders?
Kim, you are not the only person bothered by that, but I’m not even sure how an association can get reversed that badly.
@Kim, you are not! I noticed that right away and kind of couldn’t focus on anything else.
@Kim No, that jumped right out at me (like a spider drawn to body lotion)! I’ve slightly soothed my nerves by telling myself they meant the spiders were helpless against its power.
I have doubts about the lotion’s power to attract spiders but I so badly want it to be true.
In less-than-positive new year news, Bookwoman, the 48-year-old feminist bookstore in Austin, Texas, reported that someone broke their front door window. Based on the location of the break, it’s fairly safe to assume that someone got mad and pitched a hissy fit because they have a sign that states masks are required. (They have a number of staff who are either immunocompromised themselves or live with loved ones who are.)
The landlord is going to replace the glass, but they have asked for donations to get more masks, which they provide for free to their employees and customers. You can send a couple of dollars their way through the donation option on their website, if you have the ability and desire to do so: http://www.ebookwoman.com/donation
You can also support them by purchasing books directly from their website. They do have romance!
By the way, the spider lotion thing was debunked! Apparently there’s no literature on which specific compounds attract spiders, and Sephora says the named ones aren’t even in the lotion. So it’s just a fun, attention-grabbing hoax. Oh well.
Kids these days. I can kinda see how it could happen, though, if you squint at the right angle. People are always saying “xyz is my weakness.” Kryptonite is Superman’s weakness, ergo Superman likes kryptonite. The level of misunderstanding is kind of depressing.