Canada - Keep Exploring

I love tourism videos. I don't know what it is, but I could watch these all day. Plus, you know, Canada is awesome.

Keep exploring.

Sloth and cat

This is a sloth named Prince and his best friend Daisy - a kitty!

My god that cat looks happy.

Ellen's Last-Minute Costume Ideas

Tomorrow is Halloween, guys! Ellen Degeneres plus cute kids show some last minute costume ideas. Sounds like a winning combination all around.

The little girl at 3:05 looks like she is really glad that this isn't her real costume.

Hey...hey you. I've got something to tell you.

You are beautiful.

Propeller Brewing Company

An interesting little profile of an awesome Nova Scotian microbrewery - Propeller Brewing Company. 

As it is October, I'd be remiss if I failed to inform you that Propeller makes an incredible Pumpkin Ale (Made with Dill's Atlantic Giant pumpkins!) that's only around for a limited time every year. Just saying.

Breaking Normal

What exactly is normal? ZeFrank explores weird vs normal in this delightful and somewhat mentally terrifying video. Enjoy!

When he talks about the gallon of milk in the car, and right afterward talks about not saying that there is a gallon of blood in your car? Do you picture, first, one of those four liter milk jugs (like this) (which is roughly a gallon, according to google), and then picture it filled with blood sitting on,say, the floor of the back seat passenger side of your car?

I'm picturing that. Is that weird?

Secrets of Nova Scotia

KITTEN in Hamster Ball

This is literally two minutes and forty-nine seconds of a kitten in a hamster ball. You're welcome.

...Also, Stuck in the Middle With You is playing. I recommend watching the video muted, but that's just me.

The First 20 Hours - How to Learn Anything: Josh Kaufman

Today's video is a little long, but absolutely worth the time. If you like TED Talks then you'll love it. If you hate TED Talks...well, then you probably won't love it and might possibly hate it. BUT! But there is a really fun part at the end where the speaker demonstrates the skill he learned using his method: Playing the ukulele. You could just skip ahead to that part, I guess, if you want (12:30), but I really think this matter is interesting and worth watching, even if you aren't a fan of the format.

...Is that really how ukulele is supposed to be pronounced? Because I don't like it. And also I've been saying it wrong. Which doesn't change the fact that I don't like it.

PS: according to the first three results on YouTube when you search, "how to pronounce Ukulele", I've been saying it correctly after all. Thanks, YouTube! Just one of the many reasons that I love the internet.

TOP 7 FAILS OF HISTORY

Ah, vlogbrothers. It is possible I might have written about liking their videos before once. Maybe. In this video, watch Hank Green flail his arms and make us feel better about our failures. And teach us a little history. Yay, learning!

Brief flash across the screen at 2:07 - TOTALLY WORTH STOPPING FOR.

It's OK to Do Stuff (feat. Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's)

Warning!!! This song is really catchy. You will probably still be singing it quietly to yourself three days from now while waiting in line at the grocery store. People will look at you funny. It'll be a little awkward. Seriously. 

Lets all go do stuff! Or not. Which ever. Your choice, really.

Fateful

Fateful by Claudia Gray

From Amazon: Eighteen-year-old maid Tess Davies is determined to escape the wealthy, troubled family she serves. It’s 1912, and Tess has been trapped in the employ of the Lisles for years, amid painful memories and twisted secrets. But now the Lisle family is headed to America, with Tess in tow. Once the ship they’re sailing on—the RMS Titanic—reaches its destination, Tess plans to strike out and create a new life for herself.

Her single-minded focus shatters when she meets Alec, a handsome first-class passenger who captivates her instantly. But Alec has secrets of his own. He’s in a hurry to leave Europe, and whispers aboard the ship say it’s because of the tragic end of his last affair with the French actress who died so gruesomely and so mysteriously. . . .

Soon Tess will learn just how dark Alec’s past truly is. The danger they face is no ordinary enemy: werewolves exist and are stalking him—and now her, too. Her growing love for Alec will put Tess in mortal peril, and fate will do the same before their journey on the Titanic is over.

In Fateful, New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray delivers paranormal adventure, dark suspense, and alluring romance set against the opulent backdrop of the Titanic’s first—and last—voyage.

I bought this book from the $10 or Less table at my local mall book store when I was out shopping for a coffee maker. I needed a non-digital book to read between calls at work (one of the few perks of call centre life), because our electronics policy prevents me from using my kindle on the call floor. I know, it's a hard life. The story seemed vaguely interesting - historical teen romance on the Titanic, mystery boy with a dark secret...Sounds ok. I did not, no mater what my husband says, buy it just because the book jacket was shiny. Although that didn't hurt.
So, this might be a spoiler, but not really because it's all over the internet in every review everywhere - this is not just a historical teen romance on the Titanic - this is historical teen romance on the Titanic with werewolves. Oh, yes. Sounds terrible, right? Like, the kind of epic terribleness that could make the book awesome or could bomb miserably.  

Also, I would like to note that I do not, regardless of appearances and reviews of Hemlock Grove, have a werewolf obsession.

It's not that it's really that great of a book. I mean, obviously I enjoyed it enough to read it in two days. It wasn't wholly original (a lot of reviews point out it's basically Titanic but with werewolves) and not particularly surprising or suspenseful. I could pretty much see where things were going, more or less, the entire time. 

So, figured I'd get a week or more worth of work reading out of this. Instead, on the day I started it, when I came home from work, I thought, I'll just finish this one chapter that I'm in the middle of. And then binge read well over half of the thing, right up until the time I had to force myself to stop and go to bed. I only stopped to cook and eat supper. I might need to work on my impulse control. I polished off the rest during my shift the next day. 

Still, I read the whole thing in two days. I mean, I'm not a slow reader, but still. Two days.

I spent a good chunk of time trying to hate all of the characters. This was set on the Titanic, so obviously everyone was going to die. This may or may not have actually come to pass by the end of the book. I figured, probably main character Tess gets to live, but everyone else is going to die so I better not get attached to anyone. Unfortunately, all of the characters that you're supposed to like are absolutely likable, and the characters you're supposed to hate are jackasses and monsters. Not overly complex, but easy enough to get into. 

I'm going to make some Divergent comparisons now. Divergent is on my list of favorite books ever, and although this book doesn't rank anywhere close to that, there are some strong parallels between the main characters and their love interests, which might explain how I got pulled into this book so completely. Parallels that start at the very coincidental fact that one is named Tess and the other is named Tris. Coincidental, but still. Also they are both so much stronger, smarter and capable than they realize. Love interests Alec and Four are both mysterious and broody, at least at first. Not sure where exactly I'm going with this paragraph. Interesting similarities, is all. 

The ending. I hated the ending. Even if it did end in Halifax. How to do this without spoilers....Ok, so sometimes you really want something to happen in a story, but you know it can't happen because it's wrong. It's just the wrong ending for the story. So no matter how much you want it to happen, it can't. Well, in this book, the thing I wanted to happen but shouldn't happen, happened. I was reading along, and this other thing happened, and I was like, Oh god. Really? Really, Claudia Gray? You are really doing this. And then it happened. The end. It didn't ruin the book, and it wasn't a bad ending, but it was wrong. Oh so very wrong. 

On a scale from Totally Awesome to Horrifically Awful, I'd give Fateful an Almost Excellent. A fun, quick, albeit unoriginal read with a not great ending. And werewolves. 

Bulldog tries to sit in a box that's too small for him

Ah, dogs. So silly.

"I mean, you can sit there if you want, but...You're ridiculous."

All Employees Are Marketers

All Employees Are Marketers by Richard Parkes Cordock

From Amazon: All Employees are Marketers: Real-life, Proven, Employee-driven Strategies to Get More Customers... Get More Referrals... Get More Revenues... and Get More Profits! 

This book has been sitting on my kindle for quite some time now. I'm pretty sure that it was free when I got it. As of this writing, it is $1.93. I wouldn't pay that much for it. 

I shouldn't say that. It's not a bad book. It's pretty well written and the author probably put a fair amount of work into it. It also had hardly any unnecessary exclamation marks (a common problem I've noticed in free/cheap ebooks) which I appreciate. Had I paid two dollars for it, I wouldn't have felt ripped off, per sey. I would have felt exactly the same way I feel about it now - Underwhelmed. 

There is nothing about it that is particularly groundbreaking. It all seems like common sense. Every employee should be concerned with customer happiness, retention and acquisition, whether or not they their job title says they should be. The customer pays their salary, directly or indirectly. Not only that, if you have a good product and happy employees, they will tell people about it, bringing in more customers. 

I know, right? Earth shattering revelations.  You also get some good examples, including personal anecdotes, of companies that get this right. 

...and that's it. There's no talk of how exactly you're supposed make this happen. That's the problem. The reason you don't see this taking place at more companies isn't because owners and managers don't know it. It's 'an easier said than done' kind of thing. 

On a scale from Totally Awesome to Horrifically Awful I'd give All Employees Are Marketers a Meh. If you're looking for solutions, you won't find them here. 

On female purity, ending slut shaming and a pile of kittens: Three links and a photo

Female 'Purity' is Bullshit - We teach girls that they need to be sexually desirable, but not ever have sex - lest they be thought ruined for evermore. This is dangerous and wrong on so many levels. You are worth something, regardless of how much or little sex you have or have had in the past. Period.

No 'Slut's Allowed: Why Slut-Shaming Need to Stop - This is along the same lines as the last link. Slut-shaming does more than just hurt one's self-esteem, which should be reason enough to stop it, but it also leads to a culture that allows for victim blaming in instances of sexual assault and rape.

And now, A Pile of Kittens.