Thoughts on Comfort

Comfort often plays a role in what a woman will wear, but sometimes it's not an issue, such as if you're going for a specific look.  I have a feeling, while fun, a metal bra would not be comfortable - but it is a look where that ideal could be ditched.

A date with the perfect pirate maybe?

TalonArmory is selling these and others on Etsy with the opportunity to sew them onto a normal bra, which means the comfort issue may not be an issue for some.

Hold That Thought! [NSFW]

Okay, I'm holding...

Thoughts from a meandering reader...

The other day I was walking through my local Borders and a book caught my eye.  It wasn't because there were many copies like those around it, there was only one copy left.  The book was small compared to all the others as well, but the cover and title reminded me of another book on my TBB list, Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart.  After briefly flipping through Wicked Bugs, I've added it to my list.

Funny, the covers above are cool and not exactly the same, but similar enough to catch my eye, and nudge me enough to pick it up, flip through it, and remember later to add it to my wishlist.

Along those same lines, the other day I googled 'Greek myths', and a wonderful image popped up.  I had no details about the book as in if it's fiction or non-fiction, who it was geared to, but I do know Medusa is involved and I really liked the cover - enough that I thought to do a blog with it included.  Medusa Island by Stuart and Linda Macfarlane is for children and kudos to them for such fab artwork.

These are just two examples of how important cover and title are to a meandering reader.  The artwork is eye-catching, the title speaks to the subject and is easy to remember.  The latter is important.  If I go looking for a book and can't remember the title, then the interest most likely ends there.

Sad but true, for me at least.

Naughty Thought for Monday [NSFW]

It's hot outside, really hot, but the ManSkin bikini is not what comes to mind when I think of bikinis.

Test Your Knowledge

Since Tuesday I've been posting short Who am I? brain teasers on the Authors After Dark convention blog - yeah, I'm that kind of excited it's just around the corner.

There are 4 Greek mythological figures giving you hints of their background and accomplishments.  Go over and see how many you can guess.  It's a fun brain teaser kind of thing.

I guess this is also a great time to point you guys in direction of the new free Night Owl Reviews magazine.  It's a great issue and I answered Bennet Pomerantz great question of When did You Consideer Yourself a Writer in his A Piece of My Mind: Advice for People Who Want to Write column.

I Want Good Ol' American Football!

You heard me, I want the NFL and players to work things out, and start preparing to give us fans a great season!

Are you with me?

If you're waiting like me, hungry for hot fit players running around in tight pants and wish it were little else, then maybe my short contemporary erotic romance And She Scores! will tide you over.  Even better, all the proceeds go to the American Heart Association, and my heart is crying for some good old American football.

And She Scores! is a part of the All Romance eBooks 28 Days of Heart campaign and is still available.

They've both taken a time out…

Being a lone woman in a mans locker room filled with hard-bodied, sweating, football players would normally be the stuff fantasies were made from. For Sarah Winters, its called work and today her job is to interview the man who stole her heart and then threw it away.

Recovering from what could have been a career ending injury, Patrick Conway should be focused on getting fit, but he isn't. Instead, his mind is on the interview he's about to have with the woman who never came or called to see how he was, despite them having been lovers.

Time for them both to get off the sidelines and back in the game before the clock runs out.

Buy And She Scores! at ARe now

Reading ebooks is easy, right?

Whether through the publisher, ARe, Fictionwise, Amazon, BN, or wherever you like to shop for your ebooks, it's easy to buy them, but what about reading them?

Well, sometimes that isn't so simple.

Recently I bought 13 ebooks from 9 authors and 5 publishers [big to indie] and all were in the same format - yes, my entire elibrary is *.pdf.  Should have been straightforward from there, open and read, only it wasn't.

There are 5 ebooks I haven't been able to read except on my laptop and I have tried a variety of apps - opps, sorry, forgot to mention that bit, I read my ebooks on my iPod Touch.  As an example, 1 of the publishers [the biggest of them all] I picked a few ebooks from and they fluctuated in formatting.  You'd think there'd be a house standard.

This is not good.  I'm not sure I'll ever get to those 5 at this point, but I sure would like to.  I'd also like to feel more comfortable in knowing I can read what I purchase on whatever device I choose!

All that said, the cutie is absolutely loving his Kindle, a device he was completely adamant against owning much less using.  He describes it as "easy".  Easy to buy ebooks, easy to read, easy to take on trips or the backyard.  It's all around easy.

Naughty Thought for Monday

Last week on one of my poultry days I shared a Kobi Levi swan shoe and today I'm sharing his shoe called 'Blow'.

Nothing else needs to be said.

Romance Community Pulls Together

Sadly, author Leslie Esdaile, also writing as L.A. Banks, is not doing at all well.  Fact is she's facing an uphill battle in her struggle with serious illness.  She is absolutely not able to receive visitors, answer emails, texts or phone calls, or receive flowers, and the romance community is pulling together to offer all the support it can.

There's a website suggesting various way to help Leslie and her family with the mounting medical expenses is up and it includes an auction which starts on this coming Tuesday.

Share Your Heart Auction for Leslie On Ebay [here's the list thus far of what's being auctioned off]
June 21-July 1, 2011
Bids begin at : 9 AM EST (6/21)
Auctions end: 9 PM (7/1)

Go, get a goodie, donate dosh, whatever you can do and help ease at least one aspect of this difficult time for Leslie and her family.

Poultry Funny!

Farmer John lived on a quiet rural highway. But, as time went by, the traffic slowly built up at an alarming rate. The traffic was so heavy and so fast that his Chickens were being run over at a rate of three to six a day.

So one day Farmer John called the sheriff's office and said, "You've got to do something about all Of these people driving so fast and killing all of my chickens."

"What do you want me to do?" asked the sheriff.

"I don't care, just do something about those crazy drivers!" So the next day he had the county workers go out and erected a sign that said:

SLOW:
SCHOOL CROSSING

Three days later Farmer John called the sheriff and said, "You've got to do something about these drivers. The 'school crossing' sign seems to make them go even faster." So, again, the sheriff sends out the county
workers and they put up a new sign:

SLOW:
CHILDREN AT PLAY

That really sped them up. So Farmer John called and called and called every day for three weeks. Finally, he asked the sheriff, "Your signs are doing no good.. Can I put up my own sign?" The sheriff told him, "Sure thing, put up your own sign." He was going to let Farmer John do just about anything in order to get him to stop calling everyday to complain.

The sheriff got no more calls from Farmer John. Three weeks later, curiosity got the best of the Sheriff and he decided to give Farmer John a call.

"How's the problem with those drivers. Did you put up your sign?"

"Oh, I sure did. And not one chicken has been killed since then. I've got to go. I'm very busy." He hung up the phone.

The sheriff was really curious now and he thought to himself, "I'd better go out there and take a look at that sign...it might be something that WE could use to slow down drivers."

So the sheriff drove out to Farmer John's house, and his jaw dropped the moment he saw the sign. It was spray painted on a sheet of wood:

NUDIST COLONY
Go slow and watch out for chicks!

HA! S, of course, sent me this one - thank you darlin'! 

And, as for the chick above, that's a Polish Fizzle from the Extraordinary Chickens and Extra Extraordinary Chickens book.  I am not a fan of birds, but love these books, and the calendars are like poulty pin ups!

Poultry as Fashion?

That's right, it's poultry time again!

Earlier this week I shared a chicken and duck putting their sexiness on and now it's time to show them helping the ladies of the world feel fabulous by wearing them as shoes.

I'm not a fan of birds, they scare me almost as much as horses do, but Kobi Levi definitely managed to make this swan fun.

Now THIS is a shirtless pic worth seeing

Thank you model Domenique Melchior and photographer Frank P Wartenberg for taking this fine calendar pic for Cosmopolitan as found on Homotography.

Readers Conventions Rule!

I love them because no matter which hat I'm wearing, reader or writer, I love to talk books!

That said, Authors After Dark is my favorite, and there are a few spaces left for the one starting August 11th in Philadelphia.

Don't wait, go register as it's on a first come basis.

Oh, go here, register, and be prepared to come back exhausted from the fun with loads of books and goodies.

Poultry as a sex symbol? Seriously?

Ok, I'm not a big fan of food in general, but this threw me for a loop.

Yes, I laughed, and then I thought it was so wrong!

At least they chose to showcase both a male and female poultry, at least I think they are based on the poses or I could be wrong.

Thank you Dark Roasted Blend - love your Cool Ad collections - for messing with my brain and making it more difficult to injest protein, now please go find more and then maybe I can loose a few pounds.

My #1 Favorite Thing is...

Chocolate!

Hot chocolate in particular and I hunt it down wherever I may be.

In 2007 I was reading a Travel and Leisure and found on page 188 with Best Hot Chocolate: Warm up to winter by indulging in a steaming cup of hot cocoa by Charlotte Druckman [find her on Twitter as @cettedrucks] and notes where she thinks the reader will find the richest flavors around the globe.  I pulled the page out of the magazine and it's been with me ever since, but I've never [I don't think at least] shared where the four noted are located, so here you go:

Angelina
226 Rue de Rivoli, First Arr., Paris, France
They are soon going to be selling goods from their website - oh yummy!

Cacao Sampaka
292 Consell de Cent, Barcelona, Spain
Hmmm, cocoa as a serious commodity.

Vida e Caffe
34 Kloof St., Cape Town, South Africa
Interesting, this website bugged me enough to push it to the bottom of my want to try list.

Trachtenvogl Cafe-Lounge
47 Reichenbachstrasse, Munich, Germany
Intriguing, but be forewarned, website has street noises, but there is an off button.

I've been to Angelina's before, talked about it recently, and it is fabulous, a great experience.  Maybe this is the year I get to visit another on this list of goodness.

My #1 Thing I Would Like to Try is...

...stay in an Igloo Hotel.

I know, the cold is so not my thing and this kind of cold is not something I'd normally seek out to spend time in, but I'm intrigued by the ice hotels sprouting up and looking fun.

The Schneedorf in Austria [to the right] even looks romantic.

The only problem I foresee with staying in an igloo is that fish would most likely be on the menu and I eat nothing from water, otherwise, I'm there!

My #1 Perplexing Intrigue is...

...why this?

I'm not a horse fan, in fact I'm terrified of them, although I do like Bodo Sperlein's work, very smooth, elegant, and with enough whimsy to encourage a smile.

All that said, why do I keep going back to his Ascot Collection tea set for Lladro?  And please don't ask me what I think about the latters figurines.

There's disjointed horse limbs kicking out in weirdly useful positions and heads used as stands, and yet I'm oddly drawn to it.

My #1 Designing Idea is...

...to put this Tokujin Yoioka Bouquet chair in a cozy Ladies Reading Salon.

Okay, no surprise, my version of a Man Cave would be a nook for me to sit back and read.  This chair looks comfy and fun for curling up with a good book whilst sipping on something fruity.

There's also dark red version that screams out for a more private salon.  Actually, there's a variety of colors, and all of them just make me think they'd be a nice place to spend time.

My #1 Frivolous Fashion Lust is...

...minaudière!

These are defined as "a small decorative case for carrying small articles (as cosmetics or jewelry)."

Told you it was frivolous and yet I'm drawn to them, would love to own many of them, but am content to look at and enjoy them from afar.

This all started with Judith Leiber, the first designer of the little jewels that I discovered as a teen, and have been looking out for her offerings ever since.  Something I recently heard about was the Leiber Museum which houses both Judith's minaudieres and Gerson's modern art offerings.

Road trip!

[Thank you Merriam-Webster for definition and snippet on the origins.]

Something New!

This past weekend the cutie and I went to an AMC Dine-In Theater to watch Hangover II because the times worked for us, but it was a fabulous experience.

The seats were very comfy, [while we didn't order anything] the menu offerings looked decent, there were a variety of beverages - including cocktails and beer on top, and the matinee price was the best!

With quite a few flicks coming up that we'd like to see, we'll definitely be going here again!

Food as Fashion is here!

Beef and Chanel, who knew they'd mix so well, but Art Center College of Design in Pasadena student Nancy Wu managed to pull it off with style!

No, I wouldn't buy this bag - I'm not into labels or jerky - but I see a story potential here:  A cowboy is asked to add some legitimacy to a western photoshoot for a top Parisian haute couture designer and ends up falling for the model wearing the gowns.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again:  Inspiration is everywhere and I found this one in the Daily Mail.

Need to wear a tie?

There are times when a tie is needed and others when it's not, but that's where the fun begins.

Not sure where I found this pic or who the photographer is, but the model is Tym Roders.