Bite Me Fiction

There's a newish fiction genre in town, and thanks to EJB my wife is addicted to it. Amazon reviewers have apparently dubbed it "sexy supernaturalism", and from what I can tell from skimming an Anita Blake book, these books are basically romance novels with pointy teeth, and are perhaps inappropriately grouped with SF genre fiction. They are instantly identifiable from their cover art.

These things are really exploding right now... The list below is included for the benefit of the wife.

• Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (15 books by Laurell K. Hamilton)
• Sookie Stackhouse (7 books by Charlaine Harris, originally a mystery writer)
• Betsy Taylor (6 books by MaryJanice Davidson)
  
• Rachel Morgan (5 books by Kim Harrison)
• Victory Nelson (3 books by Tanya Huff, now the Lifetime TV series Blood Ties)
  
• Berkley Sensation (3 books by Eileen Wilks, originally a romance writer)
  
• Kitty Norville (3 books by Carrie Vaughn)
  
• Mercy Thompson (2 books by Patricia Briggs)
• Cassandra Palmer (2 books by Karen Chance)
  

My Industry Languishes Without Me (Reblog)

The U.S. Department of Education has released a study which concludes that spending on education technology does not help student achievement. No surprise there! A successful implementation plan is what results in student achievement, and technology may or may not be one of the tools used by that plan. That's why it is a shame that nobody still in the industry seems to understand or care about managed learning systems.

I wasn't able to find any information about the study on the DoE's website, other than their intent to fund such a study in 2004. I'm sure that they've never looked at NovaNET, which is really a product of too much complexity for them to understand -- the DoE has always thought of educational software as a flashcard drill or Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego.

Kitchenarium Updates (Chow)

Updated the Kitchenarium with a few new recipes.

• dill salad
• sunshine fish
  

トトロの弁当

This is a really cute Totoro bento my wife stumbled on while working on our Japan album.

She wanted to know what the smaller Totoros were called, so of course I told her they were all called totoro -- large totoro, medium totoro, and small totoro. In a matter of minutes she's upbraiding me for being an idiot, because the web has told her they are called O-Totoro, Chu-Totoro, and Chibi-Totoro. Ah, beautiful Internet, so full of glorious information, so empty of proper context.

"Enchanté"

For those who have not yet seen a picture, this is the brand-new Nora Elizabeth. I'll smack a link in here should GCE put some additional photos up somewhere. Congratulations to the parents & grandparents!

Meat Alphabet (Reblog)

If we weren't a mostly vegetarian household, I think I'd use this as my blog logo. Letters courtesy of Robert Bolesta, highlighted on CMD's feed. CMD is also experimenting with tumblr now.

Dog-Pacifying Chair (Help!)

In my country there is a problem, and that problem is transport the dog (Borat video). 'Dolon is a great sleeping dog, a wonderful sitting dog, an excellent cuddling dog. But if I'm sitting in my chair at my desk trying to get something done, he's a hellion.

I suspect that if I had some kind of chair-like device that allowed me to sit at my barrister's desk but had room for my 45 pound troublemaker to squeeze next to me, my work and writing environment would be several orders of magnitude more pleasant. The important thing is giving him a space to settle where he is in direct contact with me... Unlike Maya, my feet do not make 'Dolon happy.

I also suspect such a piece of furniture doesn't exist. I'm not even really sure what it would look like -- maybe some sort of L-shaped benchy thing? A bariatric chair of some kind? I've come up empty rooting through the Interweb's tubes.

I wondered if anyone had any great ideas.

あんパン (Recommendation)

The wife has recently been working on putting together an album of our trip to Shikoku, so we've both been yearning for anpan. A baked good of infinite variety, at its simplest anpan is azuki paste stuffed in a bun. It is championed in Japan by the redoubtable Anpan Man. If you are ever in Hokkaido, there is a store dedicated to him, the wife's second-favorite superhero.
We've been talking about putting a statue in our backyard. While I'm partial to Durga killing the bufffalo demon...
...the wife is currently torn between Anpan Man...
...and Totoro.
I think we'll have some steamed azuki-filled bao for dinner.