Collection

First off today, welcome and thank you to JEN Garrett, my 34th follower! Yay!

Next - I'm a bit late with the link, but yay more, for a tribute to writer Leonard Nimoy's birthday.

Megan Sayer has a lovely post about hope. It's hard. But, I've found, sometimes it's even harder not to.

Agent Carly Watters has good advice/encouragement - for the pre-published debut author. Just when I cool it on querying, of course (but she doesn't do my genre, so it's all right by me).

And now, a three-fer from The History Blog:

Scratch any archaeologist (but not on the lower back, their legs will never stop kicking) and you'll hear a midden story. This one may be a little adult for some readers (I'd call it NSFW), but it's still interesting history! Hint: sex toy. Yeah, we didn't invent those in the 20th century either.

Out of the toilet and into ... oh, wait. The sewer. Italian family finds 2500 years of history while looking for a broken sewer line. Man, it's boring when my toilet backs up. You know, by comparison. aaaaaaannnnd I'm okay with that. (Also with my parents not lowering me into the, erm, bowels of our home when I was twelve.)

And last, but least gross (though possibly disconcerting! and that is a pun!), 18th century Swiss automata. I'll embed the punnish clip below ...

Highly-Critical Mass

Okay, ironic beard boys. When Kevin Spacey is making fun of you in an E-Trade commercial featuring a nice looking woman walking with her bearded boyfriend, suddenly finding herself eyeing the clean-shaven fella stepping out of a doorway?

Your little ironic beards are done. Leave 'em to the men who wear their faces that way for reasons that have nothing to do with proving their coolness, or being fashionable. Please.

Definitely the Last Collection

"You and I are earth" - History Extra on the history of filth (in Europe, anyway).  I like the idea that what we consider to be dirt is "simply matter out of place" - and we all know I'm obsessed with what we consider to be dirt.

A look at centuries of toys in the Thames - imagine all the little kids' treasures lost in rivers and on beaches worldwide!

The History Blog's year in review post takes us to its sexually-fixated most popular post, then hits the head.  And then tells us about those not only inspired to creation, but also interested in toilet preservation.  Because we humans like to conserve all SORTS of stuff (ask me about the archaeologist who once called me all excited because there was a petrified poop in a midden ...).  Also here we have a special edition luxury (?) item I may persevere enough to live without.

The delightful Meg Medina's Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass was named to NBC's top ten Latino books list.  She was kind enough to sign a copy of Milagros, Girl from Away for one of my nieces a couple of years back, she wears the best glasses designs, and she is an author most of us aspirants would do well to learn from.

Happy new year, everyone!