Hello, everyone! It’s been too long!
Happy New Year! As we start 2025 with all of the uncertainty that brings, I want to reiterate my appreciation for this community. I hope your holiday celebrations were exactly as you envisioned them, whether big or small. I personally have been on a campaign for “quiet Christmas-ing,” a phrase coined by one of my friends. Instead of traveling for the holidays, she stayed home and made smashburgers. My partner and I made cheesy carby dishes and two easy cookies (toffee chocolate + peppermint chocolate meringues).
For Christmas, I received the coveted Rivendell LEGO set! Now begins the hemming and hawing of where to build it. We gifted our cats a new scratch house and a window bird feeder for prime cat TV watching. My partner received new slippers and a beautiful D20 lamp.
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Vanity Fair wrote a piece on the new era of Hallmark movies. Did you partake this year? Any favorites you want to shoutout?
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If you’re in the Maryland area, McDaniel College has a “Romancing the Novel” exhibition. It runs January 6th through March 7th. There will be a public reception on February 6th.
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The Bitter Southerner‘s best albums of 2024 is truly a celebration of women. If you need some music recommendations, definitely peruse the list.
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I’m a sucker for an animal cam! The IG algorithm delivered and showed me a reel about someone’s dad building a cute outdoor cat condo for local feral cats. They live in Minnesota and the winters can get brutal. Now, they’ve launched a cat cam so you can keep an eye on the kitties!
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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!
A Complete Unknown with Tim Chalamet was everything I wanted it to be. Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez was phenomenal . I feel like the 2 leads should receive Oscar nominations. The actors were spot on with their singing and portrayals of Dylan and Baez. Even my hubby who isn’t a big Dylan fan enjoyed the movie.
Hi!
I am so disappointed in the Apple Books’ changes, which has made it impossible for me to keep track of my likes and dislikes. Earlier I could make categories and check authors for earlier books on my lists – now I can’t. Apple has changed Books into a store, not a reading app. Tough for an Apple fan to accept.
So, I need another way to get an overlook of what I read and I’m intrigued by your spread sheet. But how do I use it? I’m not a Google doc-person. I want to download the spread sheet to Excel on my computer. And I can’t figure out how to do it. Please help!
@Lena: Hi Lena, I think you meant to comment on the Spreadsheet post today and not Links. For the Spreadsheet, when you open it in Google Sheets, go to File > Download. You can download the sheet as an Excel file or CSV file which you should then theoretically be able to use in Excel.
I love that feral-ish kitty shelter live cam. They’re all snuggled up and look pretty cozy.
I subscribe to Noah Berlatsky on Substack, he does a lot of media reviews, and I enjoyed this comparison of the movie ‘Love, Actually” to Cecilia Grant’s Blackshear series. Warning, it is a bit spoilerish of “A Gentleman Undone”.
https://www.everythingishorrible.net/p/against-christmas-movies-and-romance
If you happen to live in the Seattle area this is a very cool author event with Seanan McGuire 1/08 https://charliesqueerbooks.com/events/1346520250108
I’d have shared earlier but am way behind on the non-urgent email in my inbox!
paywall on the Vanity Fair piece.
My personal watching found that Hallmark had their most diverse and unique mix of movies ever.
Maybe I can get to McDaniel.