Norse gods related. :) For parents of teens (and Douglas Adams loving pre-teens), The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is $1.99 for Kindle today. The Dirk Gently novels are humorous, but not in the silly, breakneck way of the Hitchhiker's Guide books. This book is my favourite of all Adams' work. http://www.amazon.com/Long-Dark-Tea-Time-Soul/dp/0671742515

I'm in a pub awaiting buttermilk chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. Sipping *gasp* a vanilla porter. This is my second girly beer in a week, so I'm wondering f I'd there's something wrong with me. DH and I are looking at our phones and the kids are reading in their Nooks and we are unapologetic. It's been a long day. :)

Hershey's is disgusting, but Vegemite is only a half step up from toe jam.

I miss our regular carrier. The current guy (I'll bet he's a temp) leaves at least one item for a different address in our box every day, and yesterday delivered a package to another address entirely. I know it wasn't stolen from our porch because DH was home and came to the door as soon as he heard the knock for a second package that did make it. Also the delivery time was over an hour prior to that at our house. :/ Thankfully a replacement is already on the way.

Loki's Wolves is recent. Is that what you're thinking of? Also: Runemarks and sequel Sea of Trolls trilogy Summerland (it's based on many tales and legends, but its core metaphor is Yggdrasil)

I'm sorry. If you've already agreed to her terms, I'd have another feast day, probably New Year's Eve or New Year's Day as there's not much prep time now for Christmas Eve. Only going by what you've said here, I'd be a bit worried about your friend... this seems extreme. Does she seem increasingly anxious about food? Where is she getting her information? There's *nothing* wrong with the way she is eating, but the stark healthy food/unhealthy food divide is illusory at best. And one can absolutely make a traditional Christmas dinner with "healthy" options built in; it's a pity she didn't consider that. A good friend has prepared a menu that includes satisfying options for her vegan sister and BIL as well as for the carnivores in the family and a pescatarian nephew. Everyone appreciates her (relatively small as it turned out) extra effort.

My eldest reads a book's back and the inside flap before sampling, but my eldest is far more impulsive and will read a bit and discard, read and discard, until she finds what she wants. But there still has to be something to get them to pick up the book initially, a familiar author, an intriguing title or cover, a prominent recommendation or an "if you liked..."

*blush* I think we have all her reprints.

I'm still not sure how to answer the OP besides suggesting research and talking to the librarian, which I don't think I'd what she's asking for. When my kids pick books from the library, it's because the books look interesting to then (whereas I am picking up books for them and myself from the hold shelf). Sometimes they are disappointed, and sometimes they find a gem I wouldn't have "noticed" like Zombie Baseball Beatdown. I kid you not, that's a good book. :D ETA: http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Baseball-Beatdown-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp/0316220787 Disappointment can be instructive. Kids can't recognize formula and tropes unless they are at least exposed to them. FWIW Geronimo Stilton is great for a first exposure to tropes from various genres, which are also cultural touch points.

Is it live or is it Autotune? Anthony Weiner... The quicker p®icker upper. Juice: More sugar than soda!

That would be a great slogan!

Oooooh. Good one!

I'm bored, so the kids and I have been playing this game. I'll start one here: I Can't Believe It's Not Tofu!

Take a picture of the picture with your digital camera. Problem solved. :D

Am I the only one who thought Turducken?

Me. Though I've been enforcing school day screen time limitations.

Ours hasn't... though Diary of A Wimpy Kid was more popular here. I collect good books -- our house is quite literally filled with them. The kids e-readers are filled with them. We read them out loud; the kids read them for pleasure. But we also have (or have had) Pokémon and Link manga, Baby Mouse, The Creature From My Closet, etc. I prefer to get these from the library as they have to go back. There was a time I'd vehemently sworn we would never have books from cross licenced properties in the house, *ever*. That lasted until Pokémon, though that's the one line I still usually redraw. Let's just say I'm willing to make exceptions. :)

Ooooh. I saw a video from either Saveur or America's Test Kitchen on this. Get your tin, wax paper, wheat tortilla, wax paper, cookies. Repeat, ending with a tortilla then wax paper. ETA: But it depends on the kind of cookie. Something like a shortbread will keep well sealed workout any fuss.

I thought it funny in bits, but I was terrible disappointed, particularly because I'd heard it was supposed to be empowering and not a typical click flick. As much as I wouldn't mind some time with Chris O'Dowd, we still ended up with a fairy tale ending. Everybody got their guy. Or a guy, if that's the bar. And we're all free to bleach our anuses (ani?). :tongue_smilie: I find it a bit scary that the best comedic treatment I've seen that delves into the gritty bits of being a woman is Absolutely Fabulous. Not a comedy, but I also really enjoyed Before Midnight... It peered into a more than few dark corners, and was wrenching in spots, but I was still rooting for them. Given the general ickyness oozed by Ethan Hawke, that says something.

I saw this video this morning, and we're going to give it a try.

There's a big difference between "work for" as is being proposed by Jack Kingston and having responsibilities because we are are part of a family or community.

I once won a case of whiskey, but I couldn't afford the duties and so never had it shipped.

I still use my DROID X from summer 2010, not as a phone, but as an MP3 player, calculator, Chromecast remote, etc. That thing is solid. (I had to get another last summer if I wanted to take advantage of a subsidized phone one last time, as I'm grandfathered into the old unlimited data program at verizon). You get what you pay for, and all but the high end smartphones are going to give out sooner than later. My Samsung GS3 is going strong after a year and a half, still zippy as ever, and I know people using GS2's... heck, I think they're still sold. Motorola has a new budget phone, the Moto G, that's supposed to be pretty solid compared to the competition, so maybe things will get shaken up in the budget market. (Though I do like the Moto X... and some future variant of this will probably be my next phone.) As a general rule, don't fill your main storage past 80%, uninstall apps you no longer use, clear the cache frequently. On phones with relatively little RAM, don't run too many background processes (automatic updates and syncs, etc.). If things start to slow down and nothing else works consider a FDR (something I'm loath to do and haven't had to with my GS3). Be careful what you install, and consider getting rid of any anti-virus software. Lookout and its ilk are notorious for slowing everything down. If you've had a phone with a replaceable battery for two years, get a new one... they're usually dirt cheap by then.

When I saw this, I thought he's got it backwardsl: It's the rich kids who should be made to "volunteer" to help them stave off affluenza. Just kidding of course, but, man, what an arse. Children shouldn't have to earn their food... surely we can set the bar a bit higher than that? Now, I'm all for kids being encouraged to help out and being taught the value of work, sharing, and community, but that's *all* children.

We fold them in half longways, roll them up tight and use paracord and truss them up like a roast beef. If you're good (and DH is), you can arrange it to pull the whole thing tighter on last time at the very end.