Hello Friday: FaN Notes [Week 11 of 2011]

Oh guys, I am just exhausted. Finishing up this side project and looking forward to going into copy edits on the second novel next week. Getting closer to multiple finish lines, and it’s really beginning to feel like I’m typing this while coming up on the last leg of a marathon. But enough whining. Lets talk about our week at Fierce and Nerdy, which thanks to Jersey Joe’s super-timely LEPRECHAUN blogumn, was the largest hit week in FaN history. So whether you’re a regular, a 32Candles.com crossover reader, or just here for the Leprechaun, welcome, welcome!

1. Zack, though I was quite a drinker in my younger Japan-grad schoool-derby doll-starving artists days, for whatever reason, I have never had more than a couple of beer on St. Patrick’s Day. Go figure. Maybe next lifetime… [Tall Glass: Boys and Girls Go Wild on St. Patrick’s Day]

As someone who's trying to keep this 40 pounds she lost in 2010 off, I mightily appreciated Debra Goykhman's oat cake recipe referral. Click on the pic for the full blogumn.

2. R.B. one of the things I adore about living in L.A. is that people are always surprising you. I’ve had strangers be both insanely rude and insanely kind to me here, and I seriously wouldn’t want live and work in any other American city. Though, I do have dreams of relocating to Hawaii, which is even warmer and way more generally kinder. But if you take Hawaii off the board, L.A.’s definitely where it’s at for me. [Hyperbolic Tendencies: Wherein I Learn that the Road to Heaven Is Paved with Coffee]

3. Unlike Josh Pullin, I have really fond memories of being a latchkey kid — though I myself didn’t become one until I was like 8 or 9. The freedom, the TV, the sugar! Boyo, my daughter can only dream of such a life. And, also much like Josh, it blows my mind how different her childhood will be from my own. I don’t think she’ll even be able to wrap her head around the concept of getting her own self home from school until she’s like in high school — maybe college. Isn’t that wild? [Stay-at-Home Nerd: The Latchkey Kid]

4. Seriously trying to come up with a good excuse to make “hung like a gorilla” my new catchphrase. Any ideas? [Ask Dr. Miro: Hung Like a Gorilla]

5. The disaster in Japan made me realize how well-prepared we are in case of a disaster. Really the biggest thing holding us back right now is the fact that I have no sense of orientation. So if I’m more than a mile or two from our place when the disaster happens and the 3g towers go down as well, I’ll be in deep doo-doo. If you’re not amateur survivalists like us though, I deeply urge you to read Monique King-Viehland’s article on disaster preparation. [Political Physics: The Importance of Being Prepared]

6. My MIL says she’s going to refer people to Michael Kass’s blogumn the next time someone asks her why she doesn’t try out for WHEEL OF FORTUNE (she’s really good at it). [Single White Nerd: Wheel of (Mis)Fortune]

7. For all of those people who gave me guff about complaining about the 60-degree weather last week, check out fellow transplant, Eric Sims’s Las Vegas poolside observation: “It was 74 degrees and breezy — warm, I suppose by the poor-bastard-state standards, but Uggs and scarf weather for Californians.” When he then went on to say that he actually got in the pool, despite the weather, I swear the words “polar bear” went through my head. Okay, even I have to admit that maybe I’ve gone a little soft out here. [California Seething: Seething Las Vegas]