I’m a Rambling Woman

Some days I just NEED to hit the book store and shell out a few quid. This is especially true when the Thomas Crane doesn’t have the escapist sci fi/fantasy yarns that are on my list of gotta reads.

Yesterday I had a craving for two such books – Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology and A. Lee Martinez’s Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain.

Sadly, my local book shop had neither (and, according to Gaiman’s website, Norse Mythology isn’t currently available in the U.S. anyway). I had a sad BUT did manage to find some alt. retreat-from-reality reads.

Storms on Jupiter giving me painting ideas

You know I often buy or DON’T buy books based solely on the cover art, right? Even though I’ve never read Ken Liu, his new collection of short stories, The Hidden Girl is one that, had it been in paperback (hence fewer dineros shed) I would’ve snapped it up entirely based on the brill art. Lightspeed Mag has the collection's title story, The Hidden Girl up in full. Cool, I can see if I’m keen enough on his writing style to lobby the library to buy it OR get it myself when it comes out in softcover.
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A friend on ShoutyFace shared a BRILL page of photos taken by NASA’ s Jupiter probe, Juno. Its mission?

• Determine how much water is in Jupiter's atmosphere, which helps determine which planet formation theory is correct (or if new theories are needed)
• Look deep into Jupiter's atmosphere to measure composition, temperature, cloud motions and other properties
• Map Jupiter's magnetic and gravity fields, revealing the planet's deep structure
• Explore and study Jupiter's magnetosphere near the planet's poles, especially the auroras – Jupiter's northern and southern lights – providing new insights about how the planet's enormous magnetic force field affects its atmosphere (source)

This morning, I can’t access the original site where I found these totally aMAZing images. ‘the fuck? Here’s the URL – maybe you’ll have better luck connecting than I. If not, here’s another site with awesome shots.
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Jen and Oni are down in Marshfield (versus "don the Cape" – christ, I love that Bostonianism!), on the beach for the weekend. YES, despite the fact that it’s STILL winter and, in fact, just a scrawny 19 bloody degrees this morning!
Warum? It’s a family get together. Jen’s totally awesome fam usually vaca together for a week each summer but haven’t been able to, (damn interfering life shit) for a coupla years. So, this is a mini-hol to hold them over until they can, once again, make a week of it.

I begged Jen for pics and, knowing my tastes as well as she does, she sent me dawn, low tide beauties. *sigh* *ENVY*
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Nota bene: I have not mentioned the South Carolina Primary and I won’t. OK, except to say that it looks like the Orange Asshole’s ratfuckery exhortations to his cult went unheeded.  GOOD!