It’s like seeing some alternate timeline version of me: an art taxidermist! There’s your standard jackalope, and your less-standard punk squirrel (mother’s day is coming up….). If I worked in an elementary school, I would have one of the creepier items in my office, so the kids would gape at it, eyes like saucers. Since I only visit schools from time to time, I could perhaps settle on one of the smaller items to carry on my person.

Note: due to this site’s posting on BoingBoing, it exceeded its monthly allowable traffic and is temporarily unavailable. Try again later, and buy some stuff to help her pay for her web bills!

The BBC hosts a web chat with Tony Head. Ripper may still happen, maybe as a one-shot instead of a series, but "the world needs Joss Whedon to do some movies and that’s what he’s doing." In other news, Tony hosts True Horror on Discovery UK. No idea whether or when it’ll hit our shores.

According to this BBC piece about brain characteristics common to hoarders, hoarding appears to be qualitatively different from other OCDs. Just another in our ongoing series on hoarding. No, we don’t have a compulsion to cover it, why do you ask?

Ursula LeGuin tells us "[h]ow the Sci-Fi Channel wrecked my books."

Adapted from Bernat patterns for knitting for the troops in WWII, an assortment of practical protective clothing. A few others, mixed in with some general patterns. And bless their boots, the Red Cross has ressurected some of their patterns, too!

More misc wartime patterns.

Article on wartime knitting.

After reading the quite entertaining book Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, I have been looking up information on OCD (sometimes linked with anotherr FP interest, hoarding and garbage houses). I stumbled across a fascinating bit of research that suggests a genetic cause of OCD and related disorders! Yes, I sometimes miss the news for months on end, but you’d think I would have heard about this. More on OCD from Medline Plus.

The Frugal Housewife mentions (in 1830) using peach leaves to flavor a pudding– this is certainly the first I have heard of this flavoring. Some half-hearted googling turns up some other mentions, most quite old, of flavoring with peach leaves. It sounds like they may taste of almonds.

A contemporary herbal mentions the leaves as having many positive effects, including “[i]n large quantities, they act mildly upon the bowels, securing mucous discharges without pain; and in this act many times leading to the expulsion of worms in their nests.” Eek!

Bad news: lectured by patron upset about the “gay agenda” the library is pushing (his evidence: Gay Bingo poster in copy room next to many other posters and the fact that we own “books like Daddy’s Roommate“)
Good news: it’s the same guy who did the same lecture at me before, but previously he complained about Seattle Gay News and Daddy’s Roommate, so there’s only the one rabidly anti-gay guy locally
Bad News: he fills out lots of complaint forms
Good News: since he does this over and over, I get to try out different coping strategies each time: this time I showed him a huge number of Christian picture books to show that we are not promoting one view over another. He felt that we were putting out poison and candy. I pointed out that this is why children need to be supervised in the library.
Bad news: He is never ever convinced and had no interest in checking out any of our lovely Biblical picture books
Good news: He rarely updates his rant. He’s still talking about Daddy’s Roommate (1990) instead of King and King and Family (2004).

Mind Hacks– looks like a neat book and is certainly a neat web log. I have been quite interested by the baby mind hacks my pal the new dad has been telling me about.

Yes, a knitted uterus. Teach your youngster how to knit and where her period comes from. Unanswered question: will it help men find their keys?